Mission Logs

Use the display above to toggle access to the individual logs of the most decorated Starfleet officers turned fugitive, currently at large aboard the CSS-2399 Vol'rala.

Enisgn Ensign Broni ch'Zathri : Personal Log : Stardate 6308.23 : Observations While Attending Starfleet Academy

Starfleet Academy is a vacation compared to Andorian infantry training. The coldest it ever gets on Earth is when you are opening the freezer to get ice cream.

I am fortunate to have a fellow Andorian (Thelas ch'Mais) sharing my quarters at the Academy. I do not think I could have tolerated the odor of a human in such close quarters.

Unfortunately there are two Vulcans living across the hall.

At the freshman mixer, I met several fellow students. A tall female Andorian lieutenant, a teaching assistant, I think, caught my eye and I clumsily engaged her in conversation. I may have established a rudimentary friendship with a human named Isaac Manheim, who plans to pursue medical certification and a career as ship’s surgeon. Another student, Shati Nyekundu, made a brief appearance and was introduced to me by Isaac. These two humans could not have been more different. The renowned diversity of Earth culture seems accurate so far.

The best thing one can say about humans is that they prefer to be in good humor. “Having a good time” is as important as duty and honor. I find this refreshing and perhaps even preferable to the traditional Andorian lifestyle.

Enisgn Ensign Broni ch'Zathri : Personal Log : Stardate 6412.03 : Observations While Attending Starfleet Academy

The Vulcans across the hall (Sava and Stuva) argue incessantly. Thelas plays chess with them and often goads them into disagreements. He finds it entertaining to listen to Vulcans argue. I find it as appealing as two Klingon targs fighting over a bone.

Enisgn Ensign Broni ch'Zathri : Personal Log : Stardate 6601.04 : Observations While Attending Starfleet Academy

Speaking of targs… A bit of adventure: venturing out to find quiet away from the bickering Vulcans, I bumped into Isaac. The two of us ventured down to the empty cafeteria, where we were surprised to find an escaped targ. We recognized it as belonging to an instructor at the Academy. While Isaac contacted security, I attempted to subdue the creature. Not wanting to harm it, I resorted to judo and grappled the beast. Isaac managed to secure a hypo spray from a medkit. While I restrained the targ, Isaac sedated it. Soon the professor arrived along with security. As no one was harmed, the matter was not officially reported.

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Personal Log : Stardate 6505.07 : Starfleet Academy : Cordrazine Poisoning at Chess Tournament

It was supposed to be a fun weekend playing Chess, I had managed to put together a few aquiantances to keep me company throughout playing. I even thought I had a chance of winning the tournament this year, but things as always didn't go as I planned. Everything was going fine until Saturday afternoon. After spending the night teaching a certain medical student, Issac Manheim, how to play the game in a smart way beyond randomly moving pieces and accepting an odd request from a rather confrontational Andorian, Broni ch'Zathri, I was ready to easilly get through the first half of the tournament. I did so, easily winning my first four matches and then after two other harder opponents procdeeding to the semi-finals.

Then Saturday afternoon something strange happened in the cafeteria the tournament was taking place at. Sudden irrational violence broke out among the humans, some of which weren't even playing! I was so engrossed in my game that I didn't even notice the commotion until the table was literally upended in front of me. I promptly then went to pull the fire alarm to deter the aggressors, which had little affect other than decreasing visibility and making the floor slippery. Luckilly Broni managed to subdue the mob and call security to handle the task. His heroics though seemed to have placed our group in charge of investigating the disturbance. Luckily being the exceptional student I am, I agreed to help them and pointed them towards the proper places to get the information they needed.

We discovered that someone had drugged the coffee in the cafeteria. Through deduction we managed to narrow it down to three suspects. Through further reasoning, no help added by Broni's counselor bunkmate, Thelas ch'Mais, I managed to find that only one of the suspets had a tendency to be an irrational loser, was competing in the tournament as well as having academic struggles indicating a large amount of stress. Broni, upon hearing my observations stated that he would go and talk to this individual. I let him simply go because he was adamant to go alone and I did not wish to cause any problems, that and my study time had been rudely interupted by the incident and I wanted to catch up.

Later the next Broni informed me that he confronted the cadet and she all but admited guilt by running away from the scene. Security was abruptly called and she was promptly arrested. All the others gathered to watch me defeat Sava, the Vulcan that Broni seemed to have an irrational problem with, though unfortunately I lost in the next round to Tashe Lel. I can only say I might have won had I not been distracted by the whole distateful ordeal with the delinquent starfleet cadet. Though I suppose second place isn't too high a price to pay for justice.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6706.02 : Spacedock (Earth): USS Republic’s Return

I was very excited to have been assigned to the Farragut for my post-graduation cruise. Even more excited when it turned out we were going to Deneb Core. Sure, some people might be sad they were away from home so long, but: excitement! Adventure! Really wild things!

The USS Republic was coming back from Deneb sector and its crew was rotating off duty. The Farragut medical team was assigned to do physical scans of them to make sure they weren't bringing back any exotic space diseases. I tagged along with Lt. Isaac Manheim, MD (full disclosure: good friend, and fellow assignee to the Farragut) for this; Lt. Brenda Garcia asked me to use my expertise in psychology to see if any of the returning Starfleet personnel seemed mentally disturbed in any way.

Most of the returning soldiers seemed OK, but one caught my eye as he switched out of the exam line leading to the Vulcan doctor. I discreetly followed him and was able to ascertain that he was red-haired, otherwise non-descript, and a little wild-eyed and freaked out--and wearing a red shirt which marked him as Operations. When he was scanned I noted that he was Kenneth Lopez, Lt. JG.

After they had been processed, I repaired down to the SPAAAAACE DISCO to keep an eye on Kenneth Lopez. I quickly spotted him talking to two other redshirts, and took an extra beer over there with a lame story about a girl who was supposed to meet me but didn't. I talked to him and Lts. Young and Sato for a while.

They were all security officers, and I learned some things from them about what I was going to find. Paragon had a plague 17 years ago and never recovered. It had declared martial law during the outbreak, and even after the plague was controlled, the government never gave up power. In general Deneb Core wasn't a huge fan of Federation law and order. I tried to get Lopez talking and was not disappointed.

First he told me that we were looking at a possible arms race in the Deneb Core; there was the Troiaka, three non-human races, each with their own aims. The two major ones were the Garunda--giant (man-sized) butterflies, one the reptilian (but warm-blooded) Garunda, and the third the felinoid Kinski (although the name and shape are suggestive, he assured me they are nowhere near as advanced or as belligerent as the Kziniti).

Then things got a little weird. He started talking about the Kraken. Giant, extremely hostile, space squids. Young said "paranoia! Pay him no mind!" but Lopez went on about ships disappearing constantly. Sato said none had disappeared recently and Lopez said that was just because the Federation stopped testing the boundaries and stuck to the established systems within Deneb Core. We should hope our tour is just checking on known worlds.

About that time, Lt. JG Manheim went to dance, and I couldn't resist the challenge. I handily won the dance-off, and then noticed that Lopez was talking to some guy in a yellow shirt with three arms. I think that makes him an Edosian? I should have been paying more attention in my xenobiology classes. I wandered over, and Lopez said "he could be one of Them"; so naturally I asked "what them, and can you tell me more about the Kraken?"

Lopez ignored me and went back to the yellow shirt. "Who are you?" "Ensign Lode, is there a problem?" "There's a problem, all right. Federation's taken on too much. It's time to start taking stock of who and what we can trust and dealing with the rest efficiently." Well, that didn't sound good, so I moved into place to intercept the punch I was pretty sure it was coming.

It was. I intercepted the hell out of it, with my jaw. Out like a light.

From what I understand, Isaac jumped in there and held him off until his friends could jump on him and pin him down. Thanks! Then he smacked me awake and took me back to his bunk and got me back in fighting shape again. Benefit of having doctor friends!

So, as I told Lt. Garcia: everything I saw about this Lopez guy suggested serious Racial Intolerance towards non-humans. And that in itself seemed weird, because Starfleet pretty carefully screens its incoming class, and its graduates, and the people it's thinking about promoting, and there'd be no way to make it through any of those gates if you were obviously a racist. So this guy probably didn't have a problem with non-humans until his tour...and something bad happened to him out there to make him this way. Which suggests to me that maybe he's not completely insane about the Kraken and that there is something out in Deneb Core that doesn't care for Starfleet.

Lopez obviously has a problem with non-humans. I'm glad the Edosian yellow shirt didn't get hurt, and I guess I know why Lopez got out of the Vulcan's medical scanning line. I hope he gets the help he needs.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Security Dept : USS Farragut : Personal Log : Stardate 6706.06 : Alpha Centauri : Downtime

Not sure why I feel like writing it down--maybe it's anxiety over our upcoming trip to almost-unknown regions populated by the mysterious ship-eating Kraken--but I wanted to recount the story of one of the first times I, Isaac Manheim, and Broni Ch'Zathri worked together.

It was a training scenario. Yes, *that* training Scenario. Crewman Ch'Zathri was in the Big Chair, I had Comms, and Crewman Manheim was on Sensors.

The Kobayashi Maru distress call came in. Of course, we all had heard of the scenario before, we all knew it was Certain Death, et cetera. Well, I say that, but Ch'Zathri might have genuinely refused to listen to anyone leaking the stories of the scenario. He's kinda funny that way. Anyway: the Maru is not quite in the Neutral Zone yet, but drifting towards it, which isn't how I thought that went, but whatever. We approach it at maximum speed to try to evacuate it before it enters the Zone, and suddenly five Romulans--yes, Romulans! I'd heard Klingons too!--beamed aboard the bridge.

I drew my phaser, Broni, bless his little heart, tried to talk it out with them, and Isaac clanked those big brass balls together and initiated the self-destruct sequence. I confirmed the destruct sequence and tried stunning the boarding party--got one of them. They started shooting too. Broni confirmed the destruct sequence, and then set it to the minimum of 5 seconds, which was also pretty badass. We took down the rest of the party (I got another) but the crew confirmed boarders were throughout the ship. Isaac got the log buoy away, Broni thanked the crew for their service and told them it had been an honor working with them, and then boom.

I thought we'd done pretty damn well, but Broni felt like he could have done better somehow, by noticing the Romulans showed up weapons already drawn.

Not sure why that came to mind, but, there it is.

Back in the present day, the three of us were hanging out in my room, Isaac playing the fiddle, when Lt. Lopez's two buddies from the night before came by. They asked me not to press charges because his career should not be ruined over one uncharacteristic incident. Well, fine: I wasn't going to anyway, because no real harm done, and although I may be Security, I ain't a narc. But I did tell them to try as hard as they could to see that he got some psychological help, because he had some really alarming things to say about nonhumans, and those things were not consistent with being a good Starfleet officer.

They say they'll encourage but not force him, and I shrug and go along with that. I then ask if they can tell me what's out there, and they say, "how about some quid pro quo? While we've been gone...what's this about Romulans." So I kinda sorta hint at the changes to the KM scenario, which they didn't know (huh, maybe that's why that exercise came to mind), and that Romulans look, apparently, pretty much like Vulcans. I mean, maybe sensitive, but not exactly the antimatter containment field codes, y'know?

They tell us we don't need to worry about Romulans in the Deneb Core and that the "Kraken" isn't entirely fictional. No firsthand report, natch, but a lot of ships did go missing while exploring off the edges of the map. Maybe spacial anomalies? Who knows. They served under Captain Blastu, a Centauran, on the _Republic_, and say he was a fine captain, but that all those Centauran stereotypes? Not stereotypes on the Centauran colony in the Core.

Then they leave.

Broni was very agitated with them about trying to lean on me not to report the fight with Lopez, and it took both me and Isaac explaining that the unofficial channels were how life got done in human society. I still don't think he got it, but learning that I'd already made a report (unofficial, of course) to Lt. Brenda Garcia of the event, so, yes, Lopez's bizarre racism was known to someone, seemed to mollify him a bit.

Next day, we helped load Vortex tech from the _Republic_ to the _Farragut_. Turns out none of us are great at Free Fall maneuvers (or at Scientific Sensors for that matter), but man Broni is bad at putting on a spacesuit. Anyway, we get that loaded, and shortly thereafter ship out for Alpha Centauri prior to our one-way zip to the Deneb Core.

There's a little Shore Leave coming up, and Broni asked me and Isaac to tag along with him. Sure, why not? I've heard the stories of Centauran women. So I put on my good cologne, and discuss human psychology with Broni, and then we all go to a bar, and sure enough there's a pretty brunette there, and I ask her to dance, and that goes well, and I think I'm making good progress but then she springs it on me:

Ayarma Lottheld, for such is her name, is mostly after me not for my masculine charms but because I'm a Starfleet officer shipping out to the Deneb Core. Turns out she has a brother, Lehot Lottheld, who is a journalist, investigating a cult, Papa Darkness, on Alardin, the Centauran colony in Deneb Core. She hasn't heard from Lehot in a while and wants someone to check up on him and make sure he's all right. So, gentleman that I am, I tell her that of course, should we go to Alardin, I will inquire after her brother. Would she like another drink? Fade to black.

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Operators Dept : USS Farragut : Personal Log : Stardate 6706.06 : Alpha Centauri : Downtime

Our journey will take us, via a vortex, to the Deneb Core — far from home, where we will be for the Farragut's next five year mission. It's quite nerve wracking knowing we will be so far from everyone I've ever known, but it's also one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6706.11 : Deneb IV (Bandi homeworld): Search for Stasis Box

The morning after my last entry, the _Farragut_ was about to coast through the subspace corridor to Deneb (~ 1kpc).

I was monitoring subspace comms on the trip, and decided I would looking for signs of subspace aliens. I did really well with the comms board this time around and although I didn't discover any aliens as such, I did find that the subspace static had patterning in it, so probably the wormhole is an artifact, rather than a naturally occuring phenomenon. I'll write that up as a paper when I get a chance.

We emerged near Deneb V. I'm not sure how habitable planets happen around a short-lifespan blue-white supergiant. Anyway, after merely 2 hours in orbit, all command officers were ordered to meet in Shuttle Bay 4.

Cmdr. Topi wanted to send small teams to investigate the impact (46 hours ago) of something unknown on Deneb IV. The Bandi (inhabitants of Deneb IV) want to be member of some larger group and are using this crash to their own advantage by calling for assistance. The stasis box on board the Farragut began to glow; therefore we are operating under the assumption that the "meteorite" is a Stasis Box itself and must be recovered. We will use local tech per Bandi request; not violating Bandi sovereignity is vital, but slightly less so than recovering the box.

The Bandi are telepaths. They provided us with a laser pistol and Bandi comm devices. They offer us an assault laser with 2-kg backpack, but it's really not much superior to the much lighter pistol. Isaac was allowed to bring Andorian-and-human-specific meds in the medkit. We got in an aircar and inexpertly navigated our way to near the crash site, passing a group that made up of two individuals, one in an encounter suit and the other looking humanoid. As they did not appear to be in distress, we passed them without stopping.

We landed; I had trouble with my sensor kit, but everyone else did OK and picked up conversation in a language we don't know, 40 yards away. Broni shouted "who goes there?"

Three bipedal individuals is who. As I closed on them, they were definitely humanoid. The two guys in front were kind of green, and the guy in the back is kindof brownish. They were not wearing encounter suits. Two eyes apiece, and holding longarms, which were not Bandi weapons. They didn't say anything, and neither did we, as we walked towards each other. Isaac offered some rations. We didn't recognize species or weapons. The guys in the front were reptilian, and the one in the back was insectoid.

When Broni turns around, the insectoid drew on him. I pointed my gun at the insectoid. One of the Reptilians shouted "Federation!" He lowered his gun, and another one asked "What are you doing here, Federation?" I lowered mine. "Meteor?" "Perhaps." "Where is it?" "We don't know; we wouldn't be searching for it if we knew." "Stay out of our way, we'll stay out of your way."

We didn't find anything. Neither, I suppose, did they.

Based on the description, these were Xindi; they are an alliance of multiple races. Reptilians and insectoids are generally more hostile. The Bandi broadcast the invitation. The Xindi developed the subspace-corridor return tech, so they were out here long before we were. The Xindi are not Federation members and are no longer considered hostile; still, finding Xindi here is slightly nerve-wracking. Xindi as a whole don't want to provoke the Federation. I checked: Reptilians use a weapon that's like a stunner turned up to lethal and does tons of fatigue damage. Insectoids have an energy weapon that does crushing/knockback damage, like a high-v beanbag round.

Isaac started a betting pool about "What's in the stasis box?" I have 10 bucks on Alien Porn.

The next morning, we find that Isaac has gotten himself super hungover, presumably to defeat mind reading or maybe just because he's a lush. When we interviewed with the Bandi this morning, I was spending a lot of time thinking about hot alien nookie and they seemed to think I was a perv and didn't want to talk to me. This may be a way I can sneak something past them.

Isaac, who _did_ manage to smuggle a tricorder, hiding his duplicity behind that terrible hangover, got busted by Broni while passing the tricorder to me. We had to surrender it to Broni.

This time, we came across three Vulcans representing Shin-Vikat. They welcomed(ish) us and apparently did not know the _Republic_ had been replaced by the _Farragut_.

Isaac said "stasis box" to them and apparently that was news. Uh oh. Shin-Vakat is on Sushas, a Vulcan world in Deneb Core. They manufacture electronics. Isaac hands over the crappy Bandi tricorder; they can't help make it less crappy. The tricorder still sucks.

Finding the crashed box is down to luck. There could be a small crater where it hit. We didn't find anything at this site either (and neither did the Vulcans).

As we were parting ways with the Vulcan exploring party, one of them, Avasta, put a bet of 10Cr on a food ration being in the stasis box.

Broni got a call from the _Farragut_: they claimed to have the likely coordinates of the crash site and wanted us to check it out. It was already the end of our shift, so we didn't have a lot of daylight left.

When we arrived there was a crowd of primitive Bandi there already, with laser rifles, who told us we would be welcome to assist with extraction of their find. None of us were sure of the legal standing of any of this, but it was their planet and their band of nomads and, perhaps most importantly, their large collection of laser rifles.

They'd been chipping away at the middle of an impact crater. We called the _Farragut_ to apprise them of the situation. They did two things (and here's where I find out how private these journals really are): told us to use our best judgment, and stealthily beamed down a Federation communicator. I palmed that and then claimed a need for a bio break, so I could sneak off for some relative privacy.

The _Farragut_ was unwilling to beam down anything Federation, but was willing to send us the empty stasis box. My idea was that we could pull a switcheroo during the excavation, and take the new, mystery stasis box, and leave the empty one for collection at the dig site. To assist with getting the empty stasis box back to the crater, I quite reasonably claimed to be chilly, and borrowed a blanket from the Bandi. By now it was quite dark and it was fairly easy to carry the empty box back nearer the action, keeping it concealed beneath a heavy blanket.

Meanwhile, Ensign ch'Zathri had discovered a way to rig the laser rifles to the vertol's battery to get more power output. This let us dig out the box faster, but it also had the side effect of giving us a way to short out a rifle quickly, with a big bang and a lot of smoke and sparks. This, I reasoned, would help with the switcheroo. Given ch'Zathri's lethal combination of attachment to the literal truth and his difficulty with the process of simply _keeping his mouth shut_ about inconvenient parts of the full story, I felt it was best to not inform him of the plan. Lt. Doctor (Junior Grade) Isaac Manheim was brought into my confidence, and the plan went into motion.

After the loss of the first laser rifle during power-boosting experiments, the Bandi chief, Zepreg by name, agreed with our assessment that his people should stand back, but he was going to stay nearby during final excavation.

Soon the box was visible, and just as planned, as it became free, I overloaded the rifle, which, as planned, emitted smoke and noise, and we made the switch of boxes. For a second we thought we were home free, but then yellow and blue energy weapons fire came out of the darkness. It appeared to be the Xindi we had previously met. I took the box and started running for the aircar. A blue pulse missed, but a yellow one hit; my body armor took most of the hit, but it still was extremely fatiguing. Nevertheless, I managed to scramble inside the car and drop the box. Lt. (Junior Grade) Doctor Manheim, in the crater, managed to shoot one of them, but they shot him back (apparently without effect). Ensign ch'Zathri attempted to use the aircar's rotors to kick up a dust cloud to blind the Xindi and shield us from their energy weapons, but that didn't really work. Nevertheless, I managed to help Lt. Doctor Junior Grade Manheim into the car, and apparently he had retained possession of the empty stasis box as well.

As we flew away, the Xindi shot our aircar, and I was hit by the shrapnel. I had some minor lacerations and bruising, but nothing terribly serious. However, this was an important and fortuitous event, as will shortly be seen. First I called the _Farragut_ on the Federation communicator to tell them the situation, and then I called on the Bandi communicator to advise that Zepreg's band was under attack by Xindi, who seemed likely to prevail. They told us to stand and fight, which was unlikely for any number of reasons. Fortunately, the Vulcan Shin-Vakat team broke in on the comms just then and offered aid as we fled.

Doctor Manheim (Lt., Junior Grade) patched me up, and then, bless him, called the _Farragut_ through the Bandi communicator to say that we had a wounded party member who needed immediate medical evac, and that we needed to meet a Federation shuttle before we could return to the Bandi mustering point. First Officer Topi met us and sent Ensign ch'Zathri on to return the aircar and explain the situation to our hosts (I certainly hope he paid the surcharges for the comprehensive insurance coverage), while Dr. (Lt., JG) Manheim and I were flown back to the _Farragut_. The whole time her eyes were focussed on the box; for a Vulcan, she sure looked thirsty.

A short time later, Broni returned to the _Farragut_ and we spent a little while watching the engineers, very excitedly, working on the box.

Not bad for our first real mission, if I do say so myself.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.14 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World): Stasis Box Theft Attempt

Roughly two months after our acquisition of the stasis box, we were in orbit around Susash, a primarily Vulcan planet of about 2.5M, and the one that clearly would be the sector capital except for the inconvenient fact of the placement of the wormhole egress in the Deneb system.

The official story was that we left the stasis box behind, and either the Vulcans or the Xindi have it (the Bandi are known not to). Of course, we know it's empty, but very few other people do.

Anyway, we got some shore leave on Susash. Our Security briefing told us that, rather surprisingly for a Vulcan world, it was the center of organized crime in the sector. Since it's also the most populous place, that wouldn't be terribly unusual except that most of the criminals are Vulcans.

I decided to put on some stylish civilian clothing, go dancing, have a good time, and while I was doing it, schmooze around and see if I could find out from Engineering what was really in the box. So I picked a club that catered to humans (Vulcan nightclubs being more like libraries-slash-cafes, which wasn't really my style).

I met an engineer, Jeffrey Lee, who said two things I didn't know: first that the box onboard hadn't been opened yet, and second that when we got into orbit around Sushas, it started glowing...which means the Vulcans ended up with the box.

Meanwhile, Isaac Manheim was talking to John Parson, who said that the contents of the box were classified. Isaac said, "oh, you lost the bet, then," and Parson, realizing he was talking to the man who organized the betting pool revealed that because opening stasis boxes could be highly hazardous, no way were they going to do that while it was on board the Farragut.

I began dancing and drinking. I quickly met a gorgeous Vulcan woman named T'Shin, and she invited me back to her place. I probably should have realized at this point that, although I am smooth, I am not really that smooth and that things that seem too good to be true almost always are. But, you know, I wasn't using my brain to do my thinking at that point.

Her place was a nice little place, but fairly obviously inhabited by a man as well as her. She said her roommate was out. I asked her about herself, and was told she studied human mating rituals and needed some practical rather than theoretical experience. I explained foreplay, leaned in for the kiss, and then—in retrospect, completely predictably—got neck-pinched.

I woke up much later to my communicator braying insistently. I appeared to be in an alley. I hadn't been robbed but I sure had a splitting headache. Broni was on the other end of the communicator, and I quickly got beamed aboard. I was late to my shift, but that wasn't the worst of it. Isaac gave me a quick medical checkout and revealed that a) I was spectacularly hungover, which I knew but found puzzling since I hadn't been drinking all that much prior to trying to kiss T'Shin, and b) I'd been mind-melded.

Uh oh.

I couldn't complain after that when my shore leave privileges were revoked and I was assigned to the staggeringly boring guard duty of protecting the stasis box, which was kept behind a force field for good measure.

Broni really wanted me to press charges, and I tried to explain that no, I was too embarrassed, and then he said something dumb about how humans should keep to humans. I swear, you think you know someone and then there's racism just below the (in this case, but it genuinely does not matter, blue) skin. Sigh.

Well, it was boring for a while. Broni and Isaac, bless 'em, were keeping me company in an empty room with a box. Then three Vulcans suddenly beamed in. One was T'Shin, and she had two male Vulcans with her. I immediately got on my communicator to raise an alarm, and found it had been jammed, so I drew my phaser and began the process of raising an alarm by yelling really loudly. Broni began fighting, and Isaac went running for the communicator panel on the outside of the room.

A firefight/fistfight ensued. There were no serious injuries (I was using a stunner, so I wasn't likely to cause any) and only one of the Vulcans was armed (one of the males, with some kind of a laser pistol). There was a lot of dodging shots and punches and kicks that didn't really have much effect. Isaac managed to get to the door, to find that the two guards who should have been in the corridor were not, and that that communicator was disabled as well. He sprinted for the turbolift, and managed to raise the alarm in time so that the Farragut could raise shields and prevent the Vulcans from beaming out. Once they realized they were not able to depart, they surrendered without incident, and were taken away by Security.

Thank goodness I didn't screw up that one too. I feel kind of bad that the Vulcans know we have the real box now (or at least, some of them; I don't think T'Shin and her crew are working for their government), but, seriously, if you'd seen T'Shin, you'd've gone home with her too.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.15 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World) : Search for AWOL Officers

The Vulcans from the last episode were imprisoned in the Farragut's brig. Broni was still really bent out of shape over the whole thing.

They have been charged with Trespassing, Attempted Theft, Assault, Mindreading Without Consent, and Attempted Theft of Restricted Technology. Mindreading Without Consent is a very serious felony, and Attempted Theft Of Restricted Technology is quite bad. The rest are just bad.

Broni was worried they would kill themselves before we can get anything useful out of them. Are we sure they're Vulcans and not Romulans? Were they official? Apparently not, but...The Kovick-A'kev are, shall we say, extremely organized crime.

Lt. Cmdr Daniel Stuart (head of Security) contacted us each individually and asked us to come to the brig. There was some extra furniture and videophones and such in the brig, apparently leftovers from a preliminary hearing.

The audience was...impressive. It was Captain Massey, Lt. Cmdr. Stuart, and the Vulcans in individual cells.

T'Shin is decidely not meek, and points out that we stole the box in the first place, that she only got the information about the switcheroo and not the rest of the contents of my mind, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, two wrongs don't make a right, but she does have a certain point that the Federation's hands are not exactly clean.

Unfortunately by doing this, she has now spilled the beans and Broni knows what happened on the Bandi homeworld. He's pretty rightly pissed but steps up and tries to claim responsibility, and I state that I was acting on my own initiative. The senior officers present state that we are off the record, and further the captain states that the boxes must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands and therefore we did what was necessary.

T'Shin says the Kovick-A'kev will remain silent if Shin Vikat is brought in as an equal partner in the stasis box. Otherwise they will go to the press with the whole sordid story. As the noted Bender Rodriguez once said, "Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer 'extortion.' The 'x' makes it sound cool."

The captain then addressed me. He said he was inclined to allow Shin Vikat access, and intended to release the prisoners unless I wanted to press charges. I do not. I may be a cop, but I'm not a snitch.

Shortly thereafter, I invited my friends to a Security meeting at which I was to be commended: given a Red Wound Badge. There I noticed that Lt. Cmdr. Stuart has a very subtle Farragut assignment patch shaved into his hair. Nice!

Afterwards, back in my quarters, Broni gave me a gift that was simultaneously horrible and kind of sweet, and knowing his difficulties with going outside the rules, must have been difficult for him to create. It's a T-shirt that says "I GOT MINDRAPED BY A VULCAN AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS MEDAL!" I don't know where I can ever wear that, but I'll treasure it.

The next morning, I was awakened by Lt. Cmdr. Stuart. The Kovick-A'kev escaped. They had help. I was ordered to assemble a team, take a shuttle, and go find out what happened. Andorian Tethet (Operations) and Sec. Ensign Pedro Pate are both missing. During the graveyard shift, the guy watching the bridge was phaser-stunned. Internal sensors were off. Pate was a security ensign, so may have pulled shifts guarding the brig.

I requested, and got, some small audio/video bugs. Manheim took a serious medkit. We decided to play the role of Starfleet on Extended Shore Leave, which should give us plenty of time to contact and scope out Kovick-A'kev.

Shortly after our shuttlecraft landed, we received info on Tethet and Pate: Tethet had access to prisoners. He is still a person of interest. Pate was not assigned to guard them or anything.

We took a taxi to near T'Shin's apartment building (her apartment is on the second floor of a high-rise). I could see a light on in her window. I went into the building and (stealthily, I hope) planted a bug over her doorway, so I can at least find out if she is still using that location, and who else might be coming and going.

After that we went back to the bar where I met T'Shin the first time. We spent some time chatting up a Vulcan; he recommended some games of chance where it will be, as he said, not the local police we answer to if we cheat. He said it was run by the Kovick-A'kev and Broni did the world's worst job acting nonchalant.

We were led to a casino. Our M.O. was that we were just there to play some games and lose some money, thus establishing ourselves as offworlders looking to burn some cash. Which we do.

Our guide stayed there; after we were done, I tried to circumlocutiously tell him that I was a grifter looking to fleece Broni and he seems even less friendly.

Afterwards we debriefed at our (bug-swept, we hope) hotel and came to the conclusion that our guide is probably a cop. I wondered how bent the local constabulary was. A little more research revealed that, consistently, the planetary government disavows Kovick-A'kev. Shin Vikat doesn't have obvious ties. The Kovick-A'kev's motives are pro-Susash, and pro-Vulcan, so at a high level they're not opposed to the goals of the government. They are The Shit in the Deneb Core; like Orion Pirates, but without the slaving, and openly pro-Vulcan. That must put local LE in an interesting pickle. Local cops are not cool with them; they get that sometimes their motives align, but, damn, son. All that murdering ain't cool.

Broni grudgingly respects the Kovic-A'kev after learning all that, which seems to represent a major step forward in his acceptance of other races. But then he immediately went on another rant (about Tellarites this time), so I dunno.

I have a troubling question. Why did the prisoners escape? They were about to be freed anyway. The only good motive I can think of is that they performed yet another switcheroo, and the box now on board the Farragut is the empty one. When next I contact the ship I am going to ask that the logs of the box-guarding be reviewed very carefully.

I can think of a not-good motive, but it doesn't seem very Vulcan: just to show they could. If the story doesn't hit the press, then I'd be quite suspicious that we do not have the right box anymore.

In any event…when this is all over, if no one is dead or imprisoned (which seems fairly likely; the Kovick-A'kev don't particularly want publicity, neither does the Federation, and so far they've been keeping the gloves on a little—sure, I was mind-melded, but it really was "just the tip", and they were generally fighting nonlethally during their capture), I think I'd like to buy T'Shin another drink. If they broke out just to show they could, I dig their style. If they re-switched boxes, I'm officially mad as hell but personally thoroughly impressed.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.16 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World) : UFP Records Tampering

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.16 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World) : UFP Records Tampering

I was assigned today to help out with an investigation regarding fradulent deletion of Federation records in this system's database. It was quite worrisome that someone could tamper with federationr records so easily. The group I was assigned to briefed me that their purpose, now our purpose, was to investigate the mysterious escape of several prisoners who were apparently attempting to steal the stasis box off the Farragut.

After getting debriefed I beamed down to a hotel where my new team was working out of. They informed me of a bug they had planted at the house of one of the escapees and quickly discovered that another Vulcan who told us that he worked for a famous sensor manufacturer: Sasato Sensors.

After discussing what we would do, I posited that it would be a good idea to see how they erased the records. Being a technical expert in cyber security I already had an idea of how they could manage such a feat. All agreed it was wise, but we split up to accomplish as much as we could at once. I managed to gain access to cable duct and find the hardware that was allowing access to the incoming federation data. Although, unfortunately I was unable to gain access to the program that was hidden on the terminal. As the next option I opted to ask our security ensign "Shaft" to give me a bug to plant a bug in the room to catch someone in the act of using the tap to get more leads.

Later that evening I was informed that the Vulcan the rest of my team met earlier was arrested and brought to the Fargut, but then revealed he was an undercover operative tyring to gain access to a drug ring that our escapee was involved in. I'm not sure what possessed Broni to arrest him, but at least his cover wasn't blown.

It seems that we are at a point where we have to sit and wait and hope our spider webs net any careless individuals. I fear that my appearance at the records facility in my Star Fleet uniform might have aroused suspicion. I really should have planted a bug in the duct I found the hardware jack as well. Maybe I'll try to narrow down all the records facility members with access to that shaft to gain more information.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.17 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World) : Recovery of Tethet

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Personal Log : Stardate 6708.16 : Susash (primary Vulcan Deneb-Core World) : UFP Records Tampering

This was a tough case, but luckilly with our clever placement of listening devices and our administrator friend, Vaat, at the records facility we were able to discover some information. After the first day the bug was planted it was confirmed that one of the accomplices of the Vulcan suspect was behind removing the tap used to tamper with federation records. It was also discovered that a certian executive, Tocha, was also accessing the tap in a dubious manner, though we just reported that information to administrator Vaat and let it be.

Later that evening we decided to interview Kennick, our undercover operative aquiantance, at the bar he frequents, there he informed us that he knew where the Vulcan suspect's safehouse was. He wanted us to burst in and set up an opportunity for him to get closer to the drug ring, but we refused in favor of scouting in order to confirm that Tethet, our target Andorian, was indeed on the premises. We were unable to confirm, however our security expert noticed that they were ordering Andorian takeout to the house, a strange thing considering Vulcans aren't ones to enjoy Andorian food.

We discussed this piece of information and decided that it was enough to take a risk on storming the house. It was flawlessly executed as I accessed the locked door and took the Vulcan's by surprise with our phasers on stun. After securing the premises we discovered that the Andorian was hiding in a supply closet that was shielded from scans.

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Personal Log : Stardate 6710.12 : Skillet-d (aka Weyer's World, Quarantined World in Deneb Core) : Opening the Stasis Box found on Deneb IV

Several months have passed since our investigation into the missing Andorian, Tethet, and subsequent retrieval of said crewman. I took the time to fulheartedly study and work towards convincing my SO that I was indeed ready to receive my certification as a Security Systems Operator, but to no avail. They keep on saying that I'm too good to promote up the chain. It's not like getting more certifications is going to get me promoted, with how hard it is to get commendations.

After several months of ardurous negotiating and studying, I was unable to convince my superiors to allow me to grant me the certification. However, we were due to soon arrive at our destination to open the Stasis box. I was very excited as my curiousity had been gnawing at me over the past months as to what was inside of it. Luckily, due to our mission to investigate the Vulcans who attempted to steal the box, we were allowed to be on the rockball planet when we were scheduled to open it.

Siko, the governor of Susash and CEO of Shin-Vikat were scheduled to be there as well, alongside our Captain Massey and StarFleet researchers. Luckily, being the savante that I am, I managed to convince the head of operations to allow me to be on the scene when the box was opened.

The strangest thing happened though, right as we were begining the operation we were attacked by Zindi from the northeast that beamed down. We were absolutely positive that there was noone else in the system so that we could open the box with minimal risk. The first barrage of fire hit the captain and several technicians as I dove for cover in the crater the box was situated. Ensign Shati and I began returning fire on the attackers as the doctor grabbed the stasis box and proceeded with Broni and the injured captain to the shuttle to escape.

As other members began beaming out Shati and I heroically delayed our attackers, and despite being outgunned managed to repel the attack due to superior positioning.

After the original attack, injured personell were escorted to the medical bay and the operation was postponed until the the location of the enemy ship could be confirmed. Following the confirmation that the unkown ship was no longer in system we resumed the mission and I was allowed to be the one to open the stasis box as the head operator was injured.

Upon opening the box a strange energy started appearing around me, luckily feeling the danger I was able to escape back quickly to avoid being consumed by whatever was inside the box. After briefly capturing whatever data on the anamoly we could, crew members were instructed to beam out, following which we witnessed whatever was inside the box terraform the lifeless world we had opened it on.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6710.12 : Skillet d (aka Weyer's World, Quarantined World in Deneb Core) : Opening of Stasis Box found on Deneb IV

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6710.13 : Weyer's World (Quarantined World in Deneb Core) : Recovery of Stasis Box found on Deneb IV

Ensign Jarred Weyer : Personal Log : Stardate 6801.20 : Deneb V (Denebian homeworld) : Brief Stop

After leaving Weyer's world, promptly named for my heroic deeds when opening the Stasis box, we left on our next mission.

Over the past three months, I've managed to convince my superiors to give give two different certs, coming closer and closer to my promotion. I try not to brag too much, but the thought of getting that dashed stipe on the sleeve of my uniform brings me a lot of joy.

Tomorrow we leave to resume our trip to Veld, a nature reserve planet. It should take three more months. Many of the people their hide their genders for some reason; I've no reason to judge them but it is still strange none the less. We're apparently to capture the DNA of some local wild beasts on the planet below us, I'm excited to participate but I fear that we aren't very prepared to do so.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6804.13 : Veld (Federation nature reserve in Deneb Core) : Meeting Alexandrianites

Not much has happened in the last six months in our trip between Skillet and Veldt.

After the Skillet escapade, I told Lt. Cmdr. Stuart about my conversation with T'Shin regarding Tethet. He challenged me on whether crewmembers who wanted to go AWOL should be allowed to without penalty. I answered that, in general, of course not, but this was also a political matter that we wanted to keep silent, and we had no way of knowing how deep into Shin Vakat the Kovick-A'kev are. He seemed confident that Tethet was the only mole aboard the ship, and let me know that other crewmembers had also been forcibly mindmelded.

The trial occurred a little while later. Stuart was prosecuting attorney, Brenda Garcia from Counselling was defending. The trial made it very clear that there was obviously inside help with the escape and attempted theft of the stasis box and that Tethet had no alibi. There's no record of the two guards outside the room having been called away and that too is suspected to have been Tethet. Garcia pointed out there's no evidence against Tethet having been abducted as he claimed. He was found guilty, and will serve the remainder of his term in a military prison on Deneb, and then be discharged. Reading her body language, Garcia seemed satisfied with the verdict and sentence; I guess she was worrying it would be harsher.

On Deneb, Tethet was transferred to a prison. No sign of Kovick-A'kev interference. Manheim got information that Kenneth Lopez—the weirdo racist guy who went after Ensign Lode, the Edosian, before our tour started—had had a major freakout and has been receiving professional help, and is expected to make a full recovery. Apparently he really isn't a racist jackhole when he's in his right mind. Good news there.

Three more months before we got to Veldt. Along the way I knocked out my CSI and Examiner certifications.

Shortly before we arrived were told we were going to have a mixer, on the Farragut, with the Alexandrianites (the major faction/religion(?)) on Veldt. They're not a race. They're a culture. So there are humans and Vulcans and Andorrians and so forth who are Alexandrianites.

They have some unusual behaviors; they're very private about their gender. You can bang 'em but you can't ask them their gender first, and if you ask it will cause a diplomatic incident. Broni wanted to know how you gently let one down. I, on the other hand, plumped up my 'fro and hit the breath spray hard, because hot is hot, you know?

I danced with someone, and they told me that the planet is a big deal to big game hunters, but said hunting is illegal. Shir (that's their pronoun) was not really into me, though. Eh, win some, lose some. Blesh danced with someone more forthcoming and apparently got lucky, since he and shir vanished shortly thereafter.

Broni met an Andorrian who's part of a science team, who told him a bit about the culture. Alex is, or was presumably the founder (if Broni found out how long ago, I didn't hear). The Andorrian said that a non-gendered work environment was invigorating in weird ways, which seemed unusually progressive, but then, well, there you go: this Andorrian said humans were a cancer! Man! This one thought the Vulcans were a positive influence in the Deneb Core. He and Ensign Ch'Zathri did not come to blows over this difference of opinions regarding humans and Vulcans.

Weyer found a boardgame enthusiast and played Space Stratego. He handily crushed his opponent, one F. Ford. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Anyway, Veldt is a nature preserve. Ch'Zathri has mission authority for our expedition to collect animal samples, mostly apex predators. We will using world-local weapons, stun-only. I'm not sure I trust the local stunners, but it'll be good to finally get off the ship for a while.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6804.14 : Veld (Federation nature reserve in Deneb Core) : Pit Precursors

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6804.15 : Veld (Federation nature reserve in Deneb Core) : Zoological Survey Mission

What a delightful day!

Lt. Stothsi began the day by informing Dr. Manheim that the Medical Department had been granted the authority to collect samples from Veld megafauna, specifically the nukehorn and the redjack. Manheim would have mission authority, and naturally he picked his buddies for his team.

The nukehorn is…well, imagine that a triceratops was a mammal, and green and furry. But still about five tons, and a slow-witted but cranky grazing herd animal. Kind of like an enormous grumpy buffalo. The redjack is a ground sloth with ridiculously long arms ending in vicious claws, about the size of a man. Well, it looks like a ground sloth, but it's not slothful. It's a hunter. In fact, packs of redjacks can take down nukehorns, which gives you some idea of how dangerous they are.

We were provided with the local ordnance, the Tapo Paralysis Rifle (which I'd been training on while Ch'Zathri and Weyer had discovered the ancient grave site). We were told not to use any Star Fleet weaponry on the local fauna, unless we were seriously endangered.

Blesh, who had established friendly relations with several locals after the mixer, asked around for hunting advice. It was about what you'd expect: cut them out of the herd, don't let them surround you, use the terrain to corral them.

I took a monopod for my rifle to steady it, and it was time to head 'em out and round 'em up!

We quickly located a herd of nukehorn, with some redjacks hiding around the margins sizing them up. With Ch'Zathri piloting (very skillfully, which he continued doing all day) we hovered above them and I got to live out my helicopter gunship doorgunner fantasies. I took down two in quick succession and was enjoying myself very much. We landed and hopped out. The first one we'd shot was waking up and I stunned it again as Manheim hyposprayed it with a sedative in the eye and began to take his DNA sample. Blesh, staying near the shuttle, took aim at the other one for when it woke up, which it started to; he shot it, it went back down, and the doctor hyposprayed it too as Weyer began attaching the radio tracker to the first one.

The rest of the herd had had enough of our shenanigans at this point. Blesh hopped back into the shuttle as the herd charged and Ch'Zathri popped the shuttle off the ground and menaced the herd leader with the shuttlecraft. That stalled them long enough for us to get on the far side of the second, more distant, downed nukehorn. We tried to scramble aboard. I managed to hop in, but Blesh failed to pull Manheim, who had climbed up on the nukehorn, into the shuttle, and Manheim faceplanted next to the nukehorn.

Broni tried to draw the attention of the nukehorns to the shuttle, rather than Manheim and Weyer, who were still on the ground—Weyer was still trying to tag the second nukehorn. Broni nudged the herd leader with the shuttle, and it retaliated, leaving a nasty dent in the shuttle. Nothing that would affect its air or spaceworthiness, but…those creatures are no joke. Blesh tried to lift the doctor in again, and didn't quite get the grip. Weyer finally got the second nukehorn tagged and made an acrobatic leap for the shuttle. As the old saying goes, white men can't jump, and he banged his head on the nacelle instead and fell to the ground, stunned. Manheim finally managed to get aboard; I reached down to grab Weyer, he jumped again, and I finally managed to pull him up. Ch'Zathri zoomed the shuttle out of harm's way.

Then he put some classical Earth music—he said it was called reggae—on the shuttle's sound system while we went hunting sloths. It was pretty good, actually. I like it better than the jazz he was playing earlier.

Weyer scanned seven redjack, and wanted to take the shot, since I'd been hogging the fun. Fair enough. He took one down. I wanted to bring it aboard, have the doctor hypospray it, and them sample it while it was onboard and we were out of range of its packmates. Manheim pointed out that he had mission authority and did not want to be bringing a perhaps-insufficiently-sedated hundred-kilogram creature with razor-sharp claws on the end of two-meter arms into the shuttle, so we set down so Manheim could sample it and Weyer could tag it. I stayed at the door watching for trouble from the rest of the herd, and Ch'Zathri joined me.

Manheim and Weyer headed out and Manheim hyposprayed the one Weyer shot. About this time, sure enough, a redjack began charging us. I shot it and it went down.

Three more redjacks came running in; I called the one on the right, took the shot, and, well, I guess my hands had gotten sweaty in all the excitement because I lost my grip on the weapon. Broni took out the middle redjack, and Blesh got the left one. Manheim ordered Weyer back aboard. Now, if I'd been Weyer, I would have just run for the ship, but he instead chose to back towards the ship, keeping his gun trained on the fast-approaching redjacks. More were sprinting onto the field of battle.

One nearly got to us before Broni shot it and it went down. Blesh and Manheim together tried to pull Weyer onto the shuttle, but failed. I shot another redjack as it came for us, and Weyer finally got aboard and we took off.

The rest of the day was similar, but we had fewer close calls as we learned more about the speed and tactics of the beasts. I thought it was a fantastic day. I got all the excitement of hunting but with none of the guilt of actually harming animals. We tagged a lot of them, and the only injury we suffered was that Manheim got slightly contused falling off the nukehorn. Well, that and someone's going to have to pound out the dent in the shuttlecraft and touch up the paint on the front left quarter-panel.

All in all, I had a terrific time.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6804.16 : Veld (Federation nature reserve in Deneb Core) : Protomatter

We were called to a conference room. Lt. Stothsi, head of Medical, congratulated us on our success. However, we had been disqualified from the competition because Dr. Manheim hyposprayed the critters with Federation sedatives. Whatever.

Otherwise, we would have placed well. She gave Manheim a metaphorical attaboy, praised Ch'Zathri for his piloting but told him he'd be expected to help with the shuttle repairs, and questioned Weyer about his slow retreat but didn't censure him in any way.

Then suddenly there was a Blue Alert! A containment breach in the protomatter facility!

So we all headed quickly to Lab 6. We got there and quickly realized there were six tasks that needed to happen in order to contain the protomatter leak. We divided them by competence and charged in.

Manheim was responsible for tracking the protomatter; Lt. Stothsi had the leadership role of coordinating the rest of us. I, Ch'Zathri, and Weyer were all sweeping up protomatter and containing it in projected force fields, and Blesh had the job of coaxing the coralled protomatter into the containment module.

The gravity plating was failing near Hazmat Storage, and the lights were flickering. There were seven units of protomatter uncontained.

We got one quickly; then although I, Ch'Zathri, and Weyer had corralled more, Blesh didn't contain it correctly and it moved in on us, messing up the artifical gravity. We persevered, and corralled all of the protomatter, while a plasma conduit exploded nearby. Blesh did a masterful job and slurped five more protomatter blobs into the containment field. We struggled a bit with the last one, but then Blesh got it, and the protomatter breach had been contained.

Whew!

We checked on the two downed techs; one was mortally wounded, but the other was conscious when we were able to try to talk to them. Blesh called for medical assistance immediately, and even the terribly wounded one, it seems, will live, due to being cared for in Sick Bay.

Blesh babysat the protomatter while Manheim and Sothsi went to sick bay. As far as we could tell, the techs were taking reasonable precautions, but honestly nobody knows much about protomatter and its properties, so it's not that unreasonable that the initial containment fields failed.

Then we had some downtime chat, about racism and stuff, and Broni came up with a weird but really cool idea about a recreation space that used hologram projections to present an immersive virtual reality. It'd be really nifty if someone could make that.

Ensign Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6808.19 : Dunsinane (in Deneb Core; Quarantined under General Order #1) : USS Stella

This mission took us to Dunsinane, a high-gravity, cold, thin, ammonia-tainted atmosphere world. It's not a very pleasant place, requiring breathing masks and cold-weather gear. Ensign Ch'Zathri had mission authority.

The mission was slightly unusual. The planet is home to proto-(?) sentient life, in the form of four-armed ape things called Hecats, but had also been extensively (and illegally) mined for its plentiful dilithium before we arrived. Our job was to recover spacecraft abandoned on the surface, remove as much possibility for cultural contamination as we could, and incidentally learn what we could about Hecats. Any dilithium that had already been mined and was on the ships should be recovered. The Prime Directive was to be (as usual) kept front and center: clean up cultural contamination, not create it. I asked Ch'Zathri to requisition a phaser rifle for me, on the grounds that shooting things from a long way away before they recognized us was a good idea, and also that wildcat miners working illegal claims were likely to be armed and vigorous in their defense of said claims. He succeeded in doing so.

We started out landing near a one-person trade vessel. An initial scan of the area showed two lifeforms, coming our way, one chasing the other. They were not yet in visual range even with the phaser rifle's scope. Ensign Weyer picked the outer airlock's door lock, and quickly determined that the airlock was booby-trapped to cook whatever was within the airlock with microwaves as soon as the outer door closed. Weyer rather quickly got the interior door open, and we got inside before the whatever-was-coming-our-way could see us, and closed the doors, just letting the airlock be cooked by microwaves.

The labels on the consoles and equipment were all in Federation Standard. Things were not especially dusty, unsurprising since the ship had been sealed, but we estimated the ship had been abandoned for a year or so. The cargo hold was completely empty except for a vacc suit, oxygen tanks, and a hand thruster. The ship was registered to one Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a known repeat offender.

At this point we could tell that the pursued creature was a Hecat and the pursuer was the local tiger-analogue. The Hecat then proceeded to climb the mesa where the vessel was sitting, which caused some anxiety. Was the correct thing to do to disintegrate the Hecat and any witnesses, to make sure there was no cultural contamination? Ensign Ch'Zathri assured me that the necessity to prevent contamination did not extend quite that far. However, General Order One prevented us from rescuing the Hecat from the tiger. This proves to be very difficult to stomach in practice, at least with sentients that look more-or-less-human. I mean, here I was, about to watch a primitive tribeswoman get eaten by a tiger, and do nothing to prevent it.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. Three more Hecats showed up, climbed the mesa, and arrayed themselves around the (now-exhausted) woman. The tiger-thing, not liking its odds against four of them, departed, and shortly thereafter, so did the four Hecats.

The official documents say the Hecats do not have any sort of language, vocal or written. However, this was clearly coordinated and intentional action. No gestures were observed, and I scanned and found no evidence of sonic energy (either ultra- or infrasonic), nor of EM. That suggests strongly to me that Hecats are psionic—although their communication could be chemical-based (pheremones or the like)—the fact that three additional individuals came some distance to help this woman would seem to argue against scent as the carrier, and in favor of long-range telepathy. In any event, I think it's quite clear that we should be treating this race as likely-sentient pending further data.

As we examined the ship, we found fairly bad corrosion inside the warp nacelles. A scan of the immediate area revealed dilithium immediately underneath the ship. I tried hard to persuade Ch'Zathri that, as part of testing the ship's spaceworthiness, we should pick it up and set it down just a few yards away—if the dilithium were actually on the surface, then the odds that it just appeared there were very low, and therefore it should count as an already-mined deposit which we should recover. He disagreed.

Fortunately, as we (having cleaned the nacelles and run ship diagnostics enough to ensure minimal spaceworthiness) lifted off, using the advanced sensor technique of "looking out the window", I spotted a big fat dilithium crystal just sitting on the ground where the ship had been, and on pointing this out to Ch'Zathri, he relented and set us down again so that I could recover it.

We made it safely to orbit and rendezvous with the Farragut, and Captain Massey was delighted. As it turns out, Lt. Cmdr. Topi is still back on Veld; this vessel is Warp-4 capable, and Ch'Zathri has been assigned to pick a crew and bring her back. I expect our team will be that crew. C'Zathri was told that "there is risk involved." That sounds exciting. Danger is my middle name! (Actually not, but maybe it should be?)

The Ship Formerly Belonging To Harry Mudd was then rechristened the "Stella," which seems like a good name for it.

We made a second foray to the surface to recover more dilithium deposits sitting out exposed. This time, alas, I was not permitted a phaser rifle. Then things got a little weird. We were collecting the crystals when Weyer said he saw a rock move. I quickly confirmed, with my tricorder, that indeed some of the small boulders (large-dog-sized) were indeed silicon-based lifeforms. The first one we saw noticed us, got spooked, burrowed into the ground, and went some distance away. We could still see it on the tricorders, but it was hanging out about a meter below the surface.

We found a second one, I tried to sneak up on it, and took a shot with heavy stun, which missed. It too burrowed into the ground, and came to a stop near Ensign Ch'Zathri, but about a meter underground. We located still a third one, I approached it stealthily, and this time landed a hit on it (again with heavy stun). That did not impede it in the slightest, and it too burrowed away. Then I noticed, on the tricorder, that a very large silicon-based life-form was approaching, slowly but inexorably. Where the little ones had weighed a couple hundred kilograms (I estimate), this one was on the order of ten thousand kilos. We quickly collected the rest of the crystals and got aboard before it could arrive. Too bad we didn't collect a sample, but...well, I'm not super-surprised that stunning didn't work on animals that are basically rocks, and I wouldn't have wanted to use lethal force just to bring one back.

Weyer calls the little ones Rock Mites; since I saw the big one first, I'm naming her Rock Mama. However, since we didn't actually collect them, I'm guessing these names are not going to stick. Nevertheless, we collected a fair bit of dilithium, and got some good recordings of these creatures and their behavior.

I would like to note that Ensign Ch'Zathri performed especially admirably as the commander of this mission, and would not hesitate to recommend him for commendation.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6812.26 : Veld (Federation nature reserve in Deneb Core) : USS Stella

It still feels a little weird to be writing "Lt. JG" before my name, but it's a nice weird.

I'm not sure where I put my journal for the first part of our extraction mission back to Veld. Let me summarize: we took the Stella to recover two crewmembers who had been infected by protomatter (one lethally) and put into stasis. We'd determined that there was a small ship adrift in the system with two humanoids in stasis, and Ch'Zathri had found the signature of a larged cloaked vessel within the rings of the system's gas giant Solum.

I and Ensign Julio Blesh beamed over to the drifting cargo vessel, and that's where this entry picks up:

We knew that what was supposed to have happened is that Lt. Cmdrs Topi and Carson had brought the stasis pods containing the infected crew to the ship and beamed out. Well, here was the ship, here were the pods, but there was no protomatter anywhere, even within the stasis pods.

The pods had been recently accessed. The craft had no security logs between time of Topi and Carson's departure and our arrival. Clearly the logs had been tampered with.

Another very strange thing was apparent. One of the Farragut crew (Taylor) had died from his protomatter exposure. Both stasis pod inhabitants were, according to the pod instrumentation, very much alive. Our tricorders confirmed this (both inhabitants alive but unconscious), so it wasn't that the pods had been programmed to lie to us.

We also found a bristle, a stiff hairlike thing. In my opinion it was from an animal. I bagged it as evidence.

This was all extremely strage. In the human body protomatter grows like cancer. Removing it from an infected human is way beyond current medical capabilities. Since we had Dr. Manheim with us, we decided to wake up the crewmembers way out here, since if something went horribly wrong and there was virulent protomatter, better we be isolated in a quintillion cubic kilometers of space than planetside in a city.

Since my momma didn't raise no fools, I stood back, braced, and took aim at the pod (on heavy stun, of course—I'm not a psycho) before we thawed it.

We did the one who's not supposed to be dead first, Lt. Donald Cervantes. He came out of stasis a little befuddled, as one is, and was very confused that the last thing he remembered was being on the USS Farragut and now he was on an anonymous cargo ship in an undisclosed location. He underwent a quick psych and physical evaluationm and seemed OK. He then inquired after Crewman Taylor, and we had to explain that Taylor's condition, while they had been missing, was upgraded from All Dead to Mostly Dead.

Next we woke up the formerly late Mr. Taylor. Taylor lunged for Manheim and I hit him with a heavy stun. He dropped. I tied his wrists and ankles with smart rope and we continued the examination. According to Manheim he was in perfect physical health. Manheim woke him up again. He was at best extremely disoriented, and tried to bite Blesh on being asked his name, rank, serial number, location, et cetera. To my psychologically-trained eye, he seemed to be basically feral. Maybe being dead caused some organic brain damage? In any event, we subdued him again and got him into the stasis pod, so we could get him to Veld for a proper medical scan.

We took both crewman to Veld in the Stella and remanded them to medical care. I talked briefly to Cmdr. Topi, who was there waiting for me. Notably no Veld people at all were around.

We seemed to be out of leads at this point. The large ship in the ring system could not be found again, the bristle matched no known species (which in itself was interesting), and the medical report on Taylor made very little sense: no organic brain damage, but he's capable of, at most, rudimentary speech, is impossible to hypnotize, and his brain activity is all messed up. Effectively, whatever is wrong with him isn't really a psych disorder, and mentally he's no longer really a human. Poor guy.

Finally Lt. Ch'Zathri reported our failure to recover the protomatter to the Farragut and our rendezvous point was changed to Hautdesert.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6911.14 : Tusk (SyncIon Grav Inc research facility in Deneb Core) : USS Stella

Finally back on active duty after recovering from that console exploding in my face. Feels like I've been gone forever.

The first thing that happened was that the Grand Jury for the Kovick-A'Kev captured in a raid on a warehouse on Hautdesert was empanelled. Cmdr. Topi had zero tolerance for the Kovick-A'Kev. Broni was unsurprisingly in violent agreement. A human and a Tellarite were being charged as well; the usual things. Drugs, contraband weapons, firing on a Federation Officer. The Kovick-A'Kev did not seem too concerned. Shirley asked if it was on the record that the weapons used by Kovick-A'kev were nonlethal. It was indeed. They were indicted and put in the brig.

Following up from our Deneb 5 trip: the feral crewmember was put in a medically-induced coma. He never got any better. The other guy was still in the brig, but allowed out under supervision.

Upon arrival at Deneb 5 we dropped off the prisoners and the psychogically-damanged prisoners. Then on to Tusk, which took four long months of travel. The planet Tusk was mostly Tellarite, mostly industrial metals. It smelled like a gym sock in a foundry.

And then, as I, Broni, Weyer, and our strangely-muted companions were on board the Stella in orbit around Tusk...

RED ALERT!

There was a cloaked ship attacking from orbit, and terrifyingly it was not decloaking to attack. It was firing on Tusk's main city, Horn. Massey ordered us to render assistance, but unfortunately Broni was not much of a tactician and none of us were gunners....

Weyer got a sensor lock. He suspected that the gravitics research on Tusk was what made them a target. We tried a tractor beam (because gravitics) and it locked on to something.

Whatever it was, it took an energy weapon hit, which decloaked a small fraction of it. It was big.

The Farragut got a tractor on it as it left orbit and took us with it, as we broadcasted everything we were seeing and doing. Broni fired a couple torpedos and the enemy was leaking energy out of its cloak, when suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a second ship, unpowered and in our way. We hit it a glancing blow and I and Weyer were pitched to the floor.

It took us a bit to recombobulate, by which point the larger ship and the Farragut were gone.

Weyer detected 11 humanoid life signs on the ship, humanoid. It did not respond to hail. We prepeared to beam over with our phasers set to Heavy Stun.

We quickly encountered two humans: "Starfleet! Help! What happened to us?!"

This is where things started to get weird. This whole entry is probably going to be classified, but certainly the stuff after this point will (and should!) be.

The people remembered being on a cargo run. They seemed very confused and distressed. "This is me," the woman said, pointing to the man. "I am Rodney Howard". The man replied, "I am Marion Moore." The Security console was locked out. The two people started pleading "Don't go to sleep! Don't let us sleep!"

What happens, we asked? "Nothing good!" replied the Woman when addressed as Rodney Howard.

So there was clearly some sort of body switching going on.

In mess hall we encountered a catlady (species Kinski, as it turns out) with ample evidence that she was mammalian. She also had a gun. I could hear multiple people in the mess. I shouted to them to drop their weapons and surrender. They did not reply so I gave them a three-count and they fired an energy bolt. I counted three assailants, dodged another bolt, and ducked back hehind the corner.

Weyer and I decided to flank them, so I went down the corridor to come into the mess via another entrance. I made my way around and saw (on the other side of a glass partition) a male cat-person, hung from a hook, missing an arm and a leg and 30% of his torso but still alive. I was kind of freaked out and stood there in slack-jawed horror for a bit.

I got around into a flanking position. One of the three had human legs rather than cat legs, and that's the one I aimed at and shot; it went down. Weyer took another one, this one a cat person with no ears. The third one is cowering and has no tongue. Their weapons are Federation-issue civilian hunting weapons.

I go back to the one that was hanging from the hook. He spoke Federation common and said his name is Lee Chim: "I was the cook, now I'm the food." "Hang in there!" I replied.

Half the crew was Kinski and half human/vulcan/andorrian. The one with no tongue wrote in English: "horrible, horrible, don't sleep. When you wake up it will be worse. We can't get back home. Don't know (in answer to my question, who did this to you)." She scratched it out and repeated it.

In the crew quarters, we found a human with cat legs. He told us he was Donald Roger Ryan, the security officer. This ship had been a merchant vessel.

Then he said "The Kraken got us, and they're toying with us. Always in darkness. Could never get a shot off. They're mad scientists or something." I remember the racist whackjob from the party the night before we left talking about the Kraken, and his apparently-more-with-it crewmembers telling us he'd been through a lot out there.

The pilot's cabin was empty. In Captain's room, there was a cat-analog pet. The Captain was also there, wrapped in a blanket on the bed staring. The cat was able to nod its head to communicate "yes or no" when asked, and it was evident that the captain and Kappa the cat had been mind-swapped.

The Accountant Lady was touching her face, which was...young. She should have been 55 years old. Sandra, on the other hand, was crying and old when she should have been twenty-something. One was blind--no eyes. One was a female, who had lost all tactile sensation.

So we have a number of mind and body part swaps, as well as removal of the senses. This is astonishingly vile.

We got all the ship's crew in the mess hall and re-scanned. The only one missing was the Andorrian pilot. There was a weak signature in the computer core area. Donald told me that Thenta was the pilot's name.

Weyer tried to access the computer, which his Machine Empathy told him was way more advanced than anything he'd ever heard of.

"I am Thenta ch'Shani," said the computer (after some hacking). The ship was about to explode; the pilot (in the computer) had been trying to hold it together, but we had minutes, not hours, before he lost control of the antimatter in the reactor. Broni came over to try to work with Thenta to keep the self-destruct from happening, as we beamed everyone onto the Stella. Bronie successfully ejected the antimatter core, which then sizzled and detonated at a safe distance.

The Stella then towed the ship back to Tusk. Weyer and the anonymous gunner kept each other awake onboard that ship while I kept an eye on the crew. Weyer freaked out a little when he realized how Thenta's brain had been physically hooked into the computer. And he opened a panel too quickly and caused it severe damage because a big chunk of Thenta's brain was on the other side wired into the ship computer. The Thenta-consciousness was impaired but still able to communicate with Weyer, so whatever he did it wasn't fatal, if that term even means anything in this context.

The ship logs existed, but not for the blackout periods. 10 months ago there was a gap and they all woke up at the same time super-far from where they should have been, and then the crew started missing bits and pieces, and over time more horrible things happen to them. Any time they started to get close to getting home they just found themselves farther back out. The pilot was only stuck in the computer 4 months ago.

So we are now pretty sure that the bigger cloaked ship was the Kraken, or contained it, or something like that. The merchant vessel we towed back to Tusk had the same traces as disappearing/reappearing ships, and not the traces captured by the tractor beam.

As soon as we started reporting to Captain Massey, he shut us down. We were given need-to-know clearance about the Kraken, and Starfleet was aware it's a thing (which was a relief; I was worried we were going to have to convince Starfleet of its very existence, but they do at least know it's out there), but we have been ordered (quite sensibly) to keep mum about it. Hence, this entry will almost certainly be classified for a long time.

Massey was considering what to do with the victims; Commander Topi already knows about the Kraken and the situation generally. Massey concluded that he will have to let others in on it, and that brings up up to the present.

Whatever the Kraken is, it's truly terrifying and malevolent. But its malevolence doesn't seem...efficient. It's like cruel and inept curiosity; imagine a child pulling wings off birds and sticking them into frogs to see what will happen. I sure hope the Kraken isn't the larval, immature form of some horrific god-like entity. That'd be really awful.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6911.15 : Tusk (SyncIon Grav Inc research facility in Deneb Core) : USS Farragut

This entry in its entirety will be devoted to the debrief after our encounter with Kraken survivors. Obviously this entry will be classified by the powers that be, and if anyone other than me is ever having to read it, something's gone terribly wrong. So, future reader, you have my sympathy and my hope for your success combatting the Kraken.

The group in the room was: Massey, Topi, Lt. Brenda Garcia (Counseling), and us. That's it.

We were told that we are now designated a task force to deal with the Kraken threat. Garcia had been brought into the need-to-know circle due to her work with the mind-altered C. Taylor and Lt. Cervantes. Topi gave a description of the Kraken, which has been around at least 150 years since Federation species reached the Deneb Core, pre-contact records indicate millenia. Theories include hostile aliens, Precursor AIs, Kzinti weapons, and time travellers. I read this as "honestly, we have no idea." The overt Federation stance is that none of these hold water, but the Federation, obviously, does not want to induce panic.

Garcia took over the briefing at this point: "Blesh and I observed Taylor and Cervantes for seven months...." and determined that Taylor was perpetually in a hyperagressive feral state and that in her opinion, Cervantes had become a psychopath "well capable of attempting to murder Nyekundu under cover of an ion storm."

Well, that was interesting. That was actually the first time I'd considered the possibility that the console hadn't just exploded in my face of its own accord. I also wonder...hyperagressive feral state? Could Taylor have been mind-swapped with a Redjack?

Then there are the ancient legends from the Troika, prior at least two of their species becoming spacefaring, so the Kraken is not just an out-in-space thing. Physical descriptions of them are consistent, but folklore tends to be self-reinforcing, so we shouldn't place too much weight on that. Nevertheless they are described as dark, hairy tormenters. And of course we do have a bristle from a hitherto unknown species.

There are other such artifacts. Weyer (I think) asked, "can we extrapolate from the DNA to know what they look like?" Based on the DNA, they are not bipedal and therefore are not Progenitors or Progenitor-derived. No way we can tell their lifespan from the genetic material we do have.

It seems that it might help to do a sector folklore deep-dive. One border of Deneb core seems to bump up on the Troika sector, and maybe beyond that border is where the Kraken is/are coming from. Thus, we should think about talking to Troikan anthropologists...the Troikan word for them translates as "boogeymen" or "bugbears."

Then I spoke and gave my theory about horrific, but childlike, malice. This was received...well, gratifyingly seriously, actually.

The question Captain Massey asked was the right one: what threat do they pose? They seem like mad scientists, and are clearly not at all efficient in terms of extermination. Blesh points out that we are outgunned and do not know what we are facing, and because of that, they are probably not a pre-invasion, and they are probably not an existential threat. If they wanted to be an existential threat, based on the technology we've seen, they certainly could be. Unless they lack the numbers or the resources?

What do they want?

Let's go with the hypothesis that they are doing experiments. They seem to be experimenting on progenitor-derived races. What if the experiments are as conceptually simple as "How compatible ARE progenitor-derived races?"

A couple of data points that we don't know how to connect yet: the burial vault on Veld had material matching the bristles. Dilithium was important to them. The crystals on Veld in the vault were not native to Veld, but to Dunsinane. So they must have been taken there by a warp-capable species.

A lot of our decision may come down to, "what rules are we willing to bend?" Further exploration of the Veld tombs (under a huge glassy crater, let's remember) seems among those rules.

Lt. JG Ch'Zathri then speculated that this might be the native sector of the Kraken, and perhaps they are actually taking a less aggressive approach to territorial incursions than many known species. Could this be a very long misunderstanding?

Captain Massey pointed out that if the Kraken wanted to be an immediate threat that threat would would be dire, but it does not currently seem to be.

This is also somehow related to our discovery of protomatter, and the Kraken definitely have it, since it was scavenged off the dead-and-then-upgraded crewmen's bodies. Could this again be somehow related to the dilithium?

Once again we circled around to: WHY are they doing these experiments? What actually ARE their FTL capacities (based on the merchant vessel's reports, they can skip other ships great distances instantaneously)?

Should we, or should we not, poke the hornets' nest? Weyer was horrified and incredulous that these things could be experimenting on us and not recognizing sentience. I reminded him of humans' history with cetaceans.

Blesh suggested that as a first step, we should collect DNA from the tomb and figure out what the Kraken species is. We will go onboard the Stella to Deneb V to study the crew from the Tara Sprinter. The Farragut will travel to Veld to examine the catacomb.

Topi was uncomfortable with this plan. The Sprinter crew was obviously Kraken-altered, and in the past Kraken-altered people have been turned into psychopaths. Now we propose to take a vessel under the command of a computer somehow fused with the brain of a Kraken-altered subject to Deneb 5?

We all had to concede that she had made a good point.

She at the very least wanted a killswitch on the embedded Andorrian pilot. Ch'Zathri objected to the killswitch: the cyborg is clearly sentient. This would be, ethically, exactly the same as forcing someone to fly a ship with a gun to his head.

We came up with a plan B. The First Mate of the Sprinter will be the Andorrian/computer cyborg with a standard employment contract, and Lt. JG Ch'Zathri would be in command of that ship (with, therefore, responsibility for taking action should something go wrong with the first mate). Topi will command the Stella, and both the Sprinter and the Stella will proceed to Deneb 5. Massey and the Farragut will proceed to Veld as planned.

With that, the debrief was over and we were dismissed.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6911.20 : near Tusk (SyncIon Grav Inc research facility in Deneb Core) : USS Farragut

We started the morning after the 6911.15 briefing. Broni Ch'Zathri was captaining the Tara Sprinter, and Cmdr. Topi the Stella.

I requisitioned a footlocker (with a physical lock) with 10 flashbang grenades, a Phaser II, and some spare energy cells, and put the key on a cord around my neck. My reasoning was that if the ship's computer was possibly-corrupted by the Kraken, I'd much rather have a physical lock, and a key that was going to be hard to remove from me if I was conscious.

We had another briefing; preparations were going well. Garcia reported that she had found no genetic manipulation at all; memory engrams had been swapped, and the cat's brain was literally physically transplanted and presumably vice versa. That was very weird: none of the subjects showed any sign of an immune response.

We wondered how, or even whether, the Kraken were monitoring their experiments. Perhaps they just did a rotation among multiple sites? If so, would that indicate (as Captian Massey guessed) that their resources are stretched? We wondered whether we should not log, or encrypt logs? Ch'Zathri, I, and Garcia all thought not logging was a very bad idea. My particular objection was that we were up against an enemy of unknown, but clearly impressive, capabilities, and that we wanted to give our successors any help we could, in case we failed.

Tara Sprinter was going to look for Precursor/Kraken artifacts near Veld. So the plan was to go back to Veld, examine the catacomb (and pit) in earnest, and further investigate the Zephyrus/Zaphyrus double planet around the star Murder (oh great) which, it has been speculated, was broken in half by precursor tech.

Our investigation into legends was somewhat fruitful. Topi reported Deneb Core lies 3200 ly spinward of Federation space, with its Coreward border near Troika worlds. First pre-Federation starships started arriving, via the subspace corridor, in 22d century. Many of them remained unaccounted for, but it's unknown whether they were destroyed by the Kraken or just Lost In Space. There is a Garuda colony in the Tusk system, and the Farragut will go to Sharee (another Garuda colony, the farthest into the Deneb core).

We were all getting a little freaked out by the Kraken, and it was a good time to remind ourselves of some hopeful signs: they're not impervious—our weapons did some damage. And Horn's shields held: the colony did not fall. So whatever the Kraken are, they're not godlike.

Our plan was to drop the Sprinter crew at Deneb V and then search the Veld catacombs. In addition to the Tara Sprinter crew, who genuinely seemed to want to be helpful, but whom we couldn't quite trust given the nature of the Kraken manipulations, we also planned to bring along Blesh, Manheim, and Thomas The Gunner.

Further investigation revealed that one of the airlock entrances on the Sprinter was forced and then later repaired. Further, it was forced, from the outside, to allow entry. More forensics showed that it had been forced, more than once, and expertly repaired, over the last couple years, consistent with Kraken activity.

Far from being godlike: could it be that they don't even have transporters, and have to physically force entrance to their captive ships?

The flight got underway. We decided to trap the airlock with force fields and surveillance just in case. Broni eventually trapped himself in there, and claimed it was a test—if he made a trap he couldn't get out of, then it was a good trap. I will not question my commanding officer's wisdom.

Given the circumstances, it was a pretty normal trip. Thenta ch'Shani, the Andorrian computer cyborg, wanted to know if he could be fixed and returned to his body. That precipitated an awkward conversation between Ch'Zathri and Thenta. Thenta is OK-ish with being the gunner of the ship. I ask ch'Shani what his goal is: "Justice", which sounded pretty close to "revenge".

By the rules he's not a Starfleet Officer, clearly. Ch'Zathri then made Thenta his XO, immediately put him in charge, and went for a nap.

Oh boy. I will not question my commanding officer's wisdom.

Bloodymuzzle, the partially-eaten cook, has some good gallows humor. The two of us got along pretty well.

At some point, I was sleeping and was woken by...

INTRUDER ALERT!

I shook the sleep out of my head, grabbed a Phaser II and set it to Heavy Stun, and headed to the airlock. The outer door was open to space and nothing was in the airlock. The log showed that everyone fell asleep, light levels dropped, and then we saw, on the video recording from the airlock, a six-armed creature that came in, sprang the trap, and got trapped. After a while its (similar-looking) buddies let it out.

We immediately sent that recording to the Farragut and the Stella, only to discover that Topi had fallen asleep too! We shouted that they needed to go to Red Alert immediately, which they did. However, it appeared that nothing had happened to the Stella.

At this point, it certainly seemed that my hypothesis that the Kraken do not have transporter technology was likely to be correct. If they do not, it's vital to prevent them from getting it.

Nevertheless, things were looking up. Starfleet was pleased that we had video of a Kraken. The visual evidence certainly could be consistent with the bristle we found. We had also determined that although we didn't yet know the mechanism of how they put crews to sleep, that sleep could be interrupted with something as simple as a loud klaxon, and that it took them some time for the Kraken to defeat the airlock trap—which they did not do in a subtle fashion.

Knowing that, if we can determine what they do to put their enemies to sleep, and create a defense for it, then we should be able to lure them on board a decoy ship by pretending to have fallen asleep, and then spring a trap and take some captives. Of course we don't know if a phaser's stun setting will work on them, but we do know that physically trapping them between forcce fields will work to keep them contained.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6911.29 : Deneb Core between Tusk and Deneb V : USS Farragut

I should have mentioned, I was awarded a (classified) commendation for my role in the Kraken discovery.

Our ship needed some repairs after the last escapade. It's clear that the Kraken ship just attached an umbilical to us and yanked the airlock open. It was pretty easy to repair, and we didn't bother to re-arm the force field trap.

The crew had uncomfortable Questions about their ultimate disposition; I mean, they can't keep owning the Tara Sprinter, since it's a sentient being now. We'll ask, but that decision is way above our pay grade.

The next morning a bunch of crew were feeling pukey when they woke up, and some had the squirts. Weyer blamed Taco Tuesday. Manheim did some physicals. They had radiation sickness! Weird. The food and water were to blame, so I guess it WAS the tacos!

The food and water were indeed irradiated. They were good when first brought onboard. Soooo...the Kraken poisoned us. But how?

We clearly needed to stop and resupply. Fortunately there was an M-class world (an ocean world) near our route. We sucked at sensors but Thenta was able to scan, and reported that there are large and probably edible creatures to eat. I scanned and found some decent biomass: tuna-equivalents, basically.

As we were fisihing, there was a big fast moving thing coming right for us. It jumped, and didn't hit the shuttle but looked like it could have if it had wanted to.

Any any event we were pleased that our food troubles are over. I helped Bloodymuzzle make sushi. Broni ate it, and was not happy. In fact he was poisoned. Manheim healed him back up, but...this stuff won't do.

Planet two: the food was also bad but not quite AS bad.

Planet three: my turn to be the food taster. And I got Spaaaaace Norovirous, AKA the barfing trots! Fortunately I was quickly healed back up.

At this point there was no way around it: it was obvious that the Tara Sprinter really was cursed.

Fourth time's the charm: finally, Weyer found some ungulates on some plains and they tasted OK. Yes, dear diary, that's right: we totally UFO abducted some cows.

The next morning, while we were on the bridge, horror struck: Manheim entered and his hands were gone!

We didn't think there had been a shipwide sleep incident, but we all really sucked at interpreting the sensor data, so it was hard to tell.

There's a logic to what the Kraken are stealing. It's kind of the thing that hurts the most/interferes most with job function.

I ordered sleeping with a guard always posted.

We trapped the computer, too, on the grounds that a Kraken must be on the ship and tampering with the logs. We also set a recorder that is not connected to any of the shipboard electronics.

Making the pretty-safe assumption that the Kraken stole Manheim's hands and irradiated the food, criminology suggested it wants to mess with people, so we had some choke points to pick out, through which it would need to pass to do its nefarious work.

The following morning, Bloodymuzzle asked me who has access to food and water. The correct answer is "only Bloodymuzzle and Ch'Zathri," but some meat was missing. I asked Bloodymuzzle to use his nose, and I used my forensics training. The meat looked like a tool was used to slice it, maybe a laser scalpel. There were also claw marks near the cut where, presumably, the Kraken was holding it still to slice it.

I proposed that we get everyone in spacesuits, or in the command module, and then vent the whole ship. This was deemed a little drastic.

The next day no traps spring, but Weyer's rigged recording pad caught a door swishing open and closed by itself. The security logs did not log that door opening and closing. At this point we realized that we can no longer trust our Thenta. The Kraken was wandering around cloaked and had somehow suborned the computer.

We dropped out of warp and Weyer and Broni beamed to the Stella. I wrote a note to them (because we had to assume that all speech was overheard) asking them to bring back some uncontaminated tricorders.

Broni wanted to evacuate and then destroy the Tara Sprinter. His point was that the ship itself may be hostile. Transport one at a time.

We wondered if there was any way to capture or kill the Kraken and save Thenta Ch'Shani too?

We do have a gravitic weapon, which we're pretty sure is effective against cloaked enemies.

Broni ordered me to kill the Kraken, but by then I was pretty sure it couldn't be considered an innocent in any meaningful sense of the word. Whether its malice was reasoned or not, it was most definitely malicious.

I asked whether we could transport the whole computer with Thenta Ch'Shani in it? The answer is "probably not."

We decided to try one last time to neutralize the Kraken without destroying Thenta, so we put a bunch of cameras all over the place.

Weyer objected to our probable upcoming decision to sacrifice Ch'Shani to save the rest of the Tara Sprinter's crew. Broni explained to him that command may mean deciding who lives and who dies. That is, in fact, the job. Weyer was not digging it. I was quite glad Ch'Zathri was in command at that moment rather than Weyer.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6911.30 : Deneb Core between Tusk and Deneb V : USS Farragut

We knew we had a stowaway, but it was not being captured on the ship logs, just the (disconnected) portable units. This made us suspicious that Thenta had been compromised.

I instituted a policy that anyone who slept needed to do so with a guard posted.

Our Plan A was to transport everyone not actually required to keep the ship going, off the ship and to the Farragut. Before we could implement that plan, though, Bloodymuzzle made the discovery that not all of the original food on board had been poisoned. There was a region of the ship back in the cargo area where it was clean, and enough to sustain a humanoid for a week or two was missing.

We put together a plan to perhaps flush out our captive under the guise of moving the clean food to more convenient stores. I, Lt. Ch'Zathri, and Lt. JG Weyer all set our phasers on widebeam stun, in case the Kraken were to object to our removal of its food source. It was dark when we arrived, but lit up as we came in. We swept the Chiller room...and then as we started locking the north door to the deboning room, the south door opened. Broni shot towards the door and briefly saw the Kraken, its cloaking field momentarily disrupted, clinging to the wall. Then it escaped to the west. Weyer locked the door and we ran for the machine room.

We sealed and locked the door we came in, and I locked the hoist to the galley. Broni got to the far door, and the one on his left opened; he shot towards the inside of the room, with no apparent effect. Something ran past me and shocked me with an electrical zap, causing extreme agony. Thank goodness for my high pain threshold!

I fired off a shot, and Jared did too. Well, at least now we knew where the Kraken wasn't. Something swished past Broni's face. I shook off the agony, stepped to the door, and shot into the corner where it had to be.

There was a flash of light that illuminated the Kraken hanging from a grav sled near the ceiling. I was pretty sure the stun did nothing other than make it slightly visible for a little while. It was hanging from the sled with two arms and had a whip in another: six arms, and two legs in total. The stuns clearly were not working, so I went over to Disintegrate-B (being certain that the Kraken is, at this point, most definitely not an innocent), and Broni all-out karate-chopped it. It whipped him and Broni went down screaming.

Weyer sets his phaser to overload, I shot at it and missed, and then got whipped myself. Weyer ran in to shoot, missed, I hobbled in and tried to wrestle it. I managed to get hold of it.

Its cloak came back and the sled starts moving away, but I was partially inside the cloaking field and had a good grip on the Kraken. Weyer turned off the overload on his phaser.

I managed to shoot the Kraken while I had a hold on it. It was wounded—how badly I couldn't tell—and kept retreating. I switched over to Heavy Stun (figuring that maybe it was the cloak, and not the creature, that was stun-resistant) and told it to surrender. Surprisingly, its mechanical translator replied "I surrender you allow me to go," and then the Kraken passed out. I immediately shot it on Heavy Stun, and started tying it up (just binding pairs of limbs together). After that was done and it was secured, then and only then would we try to keep it from bleeding out.

It turned out that Broni had really been studying his human culture: he yelled, "Stay out of my water spout, asshole!" and kicked it in its ribs. Its thorax. Where its ribs would be, if it...you know what I mean.

We got the cloaking device off and the sled immobilized. The Kraken was still breathing, so we summoned Manheim down to the larder. Mannheim got it medically stabilized, and we took away its whip and sidearm. Its harness looked like it had never been removed, so we left it on, put the Kraken in a hastily-commandeered crew cabin to be a makeshift brig, and called the Farragut. Cmdr. Topi agreed we had earned some extra shore leave, and requested that we continue with our captive on our existing course to Deneb V.

I attempted to interrogate the Kraken. It would not give me name, rank, and serial number. It did tell me, "We want to understand why some species flourish and others do not," and attempted to argue that what it was doing was no worse than our eating meat. I told it that although we do eat and experiment on animals, we don't do it to sentient creatures. "We have killed none of the crew of this ship," it pointed out. Fair, but what about the legends? Lots of crews just…disappeared. I tell our captive we will remand it to scientists who will be more able to study it than those of us aboard this small vessel. It seemed invested in study and scientific methods. It asked if the Andorians had conquered us, since an Andorian was in charge. I tried to explain cooperation to it, and that although on this particular vessel an Andorian was in charge, Andorians, humans, Vulcans, et cetera were on an equal footing with respect to the Federation generally. It wanted to know which wars we've lost, which I didn't tell it, and wanted to understand the racial implications. It doesn't seem to get the idea that races can coexist without having to establish a dominance hierarchy. It further wanted to know what we know about the Kraken, which I was able to answer honestly that I knew almost nothing, but I hoped there were Federation scientists that did.

As an overall strategy, I tried hard to phrase my answers to emphasize that the Federation prefers peaceful solutions but will go to war when necessary. I basically went for the hardcore utilitarian approach, since I felt like, given what the Kraken had said, that would at least be a philosophy it could comprehend: war spends precious resources, including sentient lives, that would be more productive if not used up in a war. Thus we prefer not to do that.

The Kraken twitched when I mentioned Bloodymuzzle's missing pieces, and again when I said "meat". Weyer totally flubbed the Sermon on the Mount, but I guess not everyone had a religious grandma who made them go to Sunday School. We agreed to leave our captive alone and deliver some cooked meat and water to it, which we did. Bloodymuzzle refused to help it, but wasn't going to stop me from doing so. I told him it probably ate his limbs, which he already suspected. I can't say I would do different in Bloodymuzzle's shoes. Um, shoe.

Weyer started investigating the sled. It is definitely more advanced that anything I've heard of in the Federation. Weyer hypothesized that it was found old-tech, rather than Kraken-developed. The Agonizer Whip is roughly Klingon-equivalent. The pistol had a bunch of settings, among which are some incapacitating but nonlethal modes; basically, different than Federation tech but not necessarily better.

We decided to keep the Kraken locked up and keep a Federation guard posted outside the room to deter both its escape and revenge attempts on the part of the Kinski crew. Hopefully we can deliver it to Deneb V alive and in one piece.

I'm not sure what to make of it. It seems to be completely incapable of empathy, but it's also clearly a rational and sentient being. I don't think it's likely that we will form a bond of friendship with the Kraken, but as long as they are afraid of the Federation's military might, peaceful coexistence may be possible. That said, given what I learned from the captive, I do suspect the Kraken will keep probing us to determine our weaknesses and strike when they think they have the advantage. All that said, though, I'm Security; I'm good at thinking like a crook and understanding the motivations of people who commit crimes. Although many of the actions the Kraken have taken are certainly crimes…this really is a job for a xenopsychologist or something, not me. I'll be glad when I can hand over responsibility for this captive to someone better-trained in dealing with recalcitrant almost-unknown alien species than I.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6912.16 : Deneb Core : unknown desert

Ensign Larsen was sent over from the Stella to join our team; Cmdr. Topi has added him to the Kraken-study team.

He made some sort of prayer gesture when he arrived; I and Weyer introduced ourselves, and we quickly briefed him on the little we know about the Kraken.

Examination revealed that the internal organs of this thing are generally what you would expect. The doctor suspected it's male; it has an implant in its head that is not organic. Even though arachnoid, it's warm-blooded, and the compound eyes give it good night and peripheral vision, but it may not have color vision.

It was intrigued by Larsen. "You're new," it said. "You're a scientist?" It claimed to be a scientist as well and was interested in how Larsen's experiments would advance the Federation. This was a fascinating interrogation! "Pursuit of knowledge." Larsen asked if subjects objected when the Kraken removed their skin. "It didn't occur to me to ask."

"They don't resist, they're unconscious during the procedures." But they did not volunteer.

"My name is k'whcheek" ... that being a bit of a mouthful, we're gonna call it "Click." The thing in its brain is an implant. It's a tool like the harness.

And that is when everything went wrong.

I felt a breeze blowing across my face, and then I woke up and I saw the stars.

I did not appear to be missing important body parts. I woke up Larsen and Weyer; we were all lying down in sand. There was a non-Broni Andorrian here too, not wearing a Starfleet uniform. We must still be in the Deneb core, based on the blue giants and red giants visible; indeed we quickly located Deneb, visible and very bright. Broni ch'Zathri was there too, but deeply unconscious, and we could not wake him.

The Andorian is Thenta ch'Shani, with his body apparently intact. Weyer suggested that we were in a simulation, which is plausible. My phaser, which should have been recently fired, had not been fired in at least a week.

I tried to reconstruct what happened: I remembered sitting there during the interrogation. Larsen asked about the implant, and the Kraken was touching its harness, I had an "oh crap" moment when I realized I was falling asleep, and then I fell asleep.

We decided to look for water, and see something to the west, so we went that way.

We found some tents and an adobe-looking structure. There was a weird meowing sound that sounded like Kinski. Larsen was sure they are all in the big structure. We recognized one: Trixie from the Tara Sprinter.

She still has human legs. Liam still has no ears. So we can conclude we've been marooned, but Thenta has been put back in an Andorrian body rather than a computer.

We go in to talk with Cheyenne, the Kinski matriarch. Bloodymuzzle is here but has an energy weapon hand.

Food is limited to fruit that grows on six trees. There's new fruit every day. The Kinski pick them and don't wait for them to drop. The tent material looks synthetic. The simulation hypothesis seems more likely.

There is a single shallow well.

The Vulcan cat was still here, still capable of gesturing in response to questions, and still a Vulcan.

We lost a week; the other people didn't.

The well is clearly a machine that is making water. Maybe they really have moved us somewhere.

Broni suddenly woke up and started ordering Weyer around, thank goodness.

We decide we should head towards the mountains. Around dusk, we see an obvious artificial satellite. I shoot an SOS at it with my phaser.

We determine that uneaten fruit rots quickly. Water doesn't top off every day. Now that we have joined the group, there is no longer enough water or food. We tried to pick up the tree and discover that belowground it is obviously artificial.

The Kinski were very agitated about the idea of cutting down the tree. We say we will not kill it, and the little cut we made healed OK.

We instituted rationing so we all stay alive as long as possible, figuring that Starfleet must be looking for us. Weeks pass, and the situation gets very grim; clearly, we won't last long.

This morning, Bloodymuzzle's throat had been slit. He's dead. Cheyenne said "not one of my people," and I don't see any reason to doubt her. There was, weirdly, a piece of a tricorder—clearly Federation tech—in the wound, and another quarter pound of tricorder scattered through what the Kraken had left of his body.

Scanning with the patched-up-as-best-we-could tricorder, we could tell that Trixie and Cheyenne both have some implants.

The ushaan-tor seemed like the murder weapon. I convinced a Kinksi to let me examine one of their throwing axes, and was convinced that the murder weapon looks a lot more like an ushaan-tor than a throwing axe.

Thenta's ushaan-tor was not where he left it. "Broni, don't give me up to them!" he pleaded. We don't think he did it either. Clearly the Kraken have escalated the experiment to see what we will do as death approaches.

It was at this point that a semidelirious ch'Zathri had first a terrible idea, and then one that might be the best idea. The bad idea was that "when we get out of here, if the Federation doesn't declare war on the Kraken, let's mutiny, steal the Stella, and go after the Kraken."

I, even now, am not willing to give up on the Federation, which, in my, admittedly limited experience, usually does the right thing, even if it takes a while to get there. So I'm not willing to turn pirate.

The possibly-best idea came from the subsequent discussion. How do we get out of here? Obviously, the cavalry ain't coming. There are two possibilities: it's a simulation, or it's a zoo/prison. If the first, we're utterly screwed, so it's pointless to even consider it. But the fact that there is a mechanism on the tree, rather than it's just a magic tree that produces fruit, argues for the second.

I was initially in favor of, we take the supplies we can take without killing any Kinski, and head for the mountains in search of escape. But ch'Zathri talked me out of it. While that would preserve the Kinski's ability to survive indefinitely in captivity if they desired, ch'Zathri used the tale of Masada, from Old Earth, to make his point. They hold all the cards. All we can do is principled refusal to take part in their experiment. To that end, we destroy the well and the tree and peacefully await death.

Our remaining disagreement is just that I am not sure we can ethically impose that on the Kinski. Broni claims as the commander of this mission, they are therefore his crew, and thus he was the right to order them to do so. I, on the other hand...well, it's not like conscript armies haven't historically been a thing, but they didn't sign up to the Starfleet chain of command. But I'm not a legal scholar, and ch'Zathri certainly is my commander, and I am not clear that this would be an illegal order, so I am certainly going to go along with his plan. Probably not even under protest.

Certainly, all of us dying like this would send a stronger message to the Kraken than a bunch choosing to live as captives, and a small band striking out to die alone in the desert. At this point, I think we have to consider ourselves all dead, and ask how our deaths can best serve the Federation in their inevitable formal contact with the Kraken. Solidarity seems to me like the right answer.

I expect my next journal entry to be my final one. It has been an honor to serve with and under Lt. Broni ch'Zathri. I fervently hope I still feel like saying that when I write my last entry.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6912.17 : Deneb Core : unknown desert

Turns out this is unlikely to be my last journal entry, after all.

At the end of the last entry, Lt. ch'Zathri had talked me around to his Project Masada plan, and I had promised to back him when he introduced it to Cheyanne and the other Kinski.

I let him know before I succumbed to the delirium of thirst that it had been an honor working with and for him. I felt like that was important to make clear.

Cheyanne at first proposed that we eat the corpse of Bloodymuzzle in order to prolong our lives. This was the perfect opportunity for ch'Zathri to present our argument. It amazed me, but Cheyanne came around to our analysis quite quickly. She of course objected that the plan was suicide, but it was not long before we had her convinced that we needed to regard ourselves as already dead and, therefore, our actions needed to send the message that the Federation and its allies were not to be trifled with, and a principled and obviously intentional destruction of their experiment would be far more effective than either turning on one another, or than dying by inches in captivity.

So we decided to have a wake for Bloodymuzzle, and in the course of that wake, to destroy the food and water sources, and give Bloodymuzzle a proper send-off, that would not include cannibalism.

As the party kicked off, Weyer scanned the satellite and suspected that it was in fact the Tara Sprinter in orbit. As we tore down the trees he tried to use the egg-like structure at the bottom as a makeshift dish to send a signal to the Sprinter, but we did not succeed.

Cheyanne and I spoke a few words. I had not known, or had not remembered, that Bloodymuzzle was her son. ch'Zathri went to inform Thenta ch'Shani (whom he suspected of being a disguised Kraken) of the plan, in full. Sure enough, during the wake, ch'Shani emerged from his tent and shouted "This is madness!"

I was observing him pretty closely, as Weyer asked some questions of him, and I'm quite confident that the person operating that body was not the same person it had been earlier in the week. He shouted "cease this ruse at once!" and suddenly our cobbled-together communicator crackled to life, and the Thenta ch'Shani next to us glazed over and became unresponsive.

"This is Thenta ch'Shani of the Tara Sprinter…"

ch'Zathri, Weyer, and Larsen talked me out of introducing the two Ch'shanis (the one planetside had come to again and seemed to be the same person he had been earlier in the week). Sooner or later, though, they were gonna have to find out about one another.

Shipboard ch'Shani wanted to know where we'd been. We asked for the Sprinter to land, but it's not planet-capable. Ch'Shani could, however, send down a lifeboat, which would give us full communications to the Sprinter, and from there, perhaps relayed communications to Starfleet.

The lifeboat did indeed arrive as requested. I had a bit of worry: if the "ch'Shani" on the Sprinter was Kraken (or thoroughly Kraken-compromised) then we were handing the keys to the Sprinter to the Kraken. However, I deemed this an acceptable risk in that they clearly have warp-capable ships much, much larger than the Sprinter, with advanced cloaking capability, they'd already been all over the Sprinter including turning its computer into a hideous cyborg, and surely giving them the physical ship wouldn't give them very much they didn't already possess.

I also was both relieved and slightly troubled that it certainly appeared we'd beaten the Kraken. I do not understand, based on what I had learned previously of them, why our captor withdrew from Planetside ch'Shani and allowed the Sprinter to contact us. Putting us all to sleep and then executing us would have been more what I expected, although perhaps they were listening when I explained the Federation's "We come in peace, but if necessary, we will destroy you" policy and decided that we meant business and their leniency here would save them misfortune down the road.

We appeared to be out beyond Tusk, in the other direction ("toward Rumors?" asked ch'Zathri) from where we had been going. ch'Shani put us in contact with the Farragut, and Captain Massey let us know that help was on the way and that he'd put out an APB asking that any ship in the vicinity render us aid.

It looked like maybe we were going to live after all.

Not long after that, the Sprinter picked up a fast-approaching ship. I suggested that it play derelict while we waited to see what was up. It turned out to be a Vulcan shuttlecraft with a warp sled. It landed near our camp. I suspected I knew who would step out, and I was right. It was indeed the femme fatale T'Shin, looking stunning as ever.

She offered us evacuation to the Sprinter in return for the prisoner Tethet's freedom. I told her that was beyond my authority but I would happily place the call to Captain Massey. He OKed the hostage trade, and she gave me a ride up to the Sprinter so I could begin beaming its crew aboard. We had a kind of awkward, but touching, scene where we wished each other well in future while agreeing that it probably would be best if our paths didn't cross again. You know, I think she kinda likes me.

ch'Zathri came aboard first, of course, and immediately spoke to Captain Massey requesting a general public alert about the Kraken. Denying or downplaying their existence no longer seems to be an option.

The rest of the crew (who had not been present in the desert) was onboard the Tara Sprinter, in comas but hooked up to fluid drips to keep them alive. I beamed everyone aboard, Larsen managed to wake up Manheim, the two of them together revived Sandra, and soon all crew members were conscious.

We went through the ship data. Nothing showed up on sensors when the sleep-pulse went through. Some of the victims remember the Kraken, but they all look pretty similar to us (yes, I know how racist that sounds) so we don't know how many there were.

However, our off-network tricorders we'd set up to find our stowaway had recorded their environments. There were four individuals, probably. They rescued Click and they were confident they'd defeated the sensors. I sent all this securely to Lt. Stewart.

We tried to have a meal and a shower. Ch'Shani was quite bothered by there being two of him. He wanted to ask the computer questions that only he would know the answers to, but as he was unwilling to do so under Weyer's supervision, we did not let him talk to his computer counterpart alone.

Finally we got a chance to go through the data from Click's interrogation. The Kraken implants look like they are extremely well-integrated with the Kraken brain; effectively it is the not-hacked-together-mad-science version of the ch'Shani-computer meld. The Kraken brain implants contain significant amounts of dilithium.

We remembered the dilithium found in the urns in the Veld tomb. Research revealed that the crystals in Click's head looked like a pretty good match to what we found in the urns. That's got very interesting implications: the Kraken were here first, a long, long time ago. Their technology has not advanced significantly in all that time. They were wiped out on Veld with some overwhelming force. We've seen them use particle beams from orbit that may be consistent with the crater on Veld. Was Veld the site of an intra-Kraken war? Or were they very very nearly exterminated by yet another ancient, powerful, precursor race, whose technology they had stolen? What we need is another expedition to the tomb (I think at this point we have ample evidence that desecration of the tomb is in the best interests of the Federation) and the services of a xenologist.

Anyhow, it's good to be back on the (probably) Kraken-free Sprinter and once again have plenty of food and water. Ch'Zathri's plan was absolutely the correct one, and he saved all of us (with the exception of poor Bloodymuzzle). It's an honor to serve under him.

I think I need some R&R but I'm excited to see what we find on Veld.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 6912.19 : Deneb Core : USS Tara Sprinter

After a little bit of time to collect ourselves on board the Tara Sprinter, we subjected each crewmember to a thorough medical scan and determined that the Kinksi all had (collectively) a Federation Tricorder, Electronics Toolkit, and a Communicator within them.

All the humans were unaltered. Thenta Ch'shani had a dilithium implant in his brain. Presumably the Kraken thought the humans were the leaders and expected us to dismantle the Kinski to get the tools.

Although The Kinski implants could be removed easily at Deneb 5, they cannot safely be onboard when our surgeon has no hands. Ch'Shani's implant cannot be removed without killing him.

Ch'Shani was not pleased about this development, and even less pleased when Ch'Zathri ordered him confined to quarters. The implant did not appear to be in active communication with his brain, but it is definitely linked in at a neural level.

Ch'Zathri was willing to put him back on duty if he passed the psych screen, and according to Blesh, he's normal within the (admittedly rather extraordinary) bounds of a very distressing situation. So Ch'Zathri put him on the helm, for our months-long journey to Deneb V.

Massey wanted to have a conference with us and Topi. Ch'Zathri voiced the theory (given above) of the implants. We on board the Sprinter were arguing hard for total declassification. Massey had concerns about publicizing the implants, but we made a compelling case for disclosure.

We thought we were heading back to Deneb V, but the main viewscreen did not show a bright white supergiant dead ahead, which was something of a giveaway. Ch'Zathri ordered that we doublecheck our course, and then attempted to alter our course. Nothing happened. Ch'Zathri then ordered a stop, and suddenly the monitor changed and we appeared to be heading towards Deneb. Apparently the viewscreen was now lying to us.

We looked out an actual window and saw Deneb off the starboard bow, so obviously we were not on the correct course. The ship sensors therefore were lying to us, and thus the Ch'Shani in the computer was wrong or compromised in some fashion.

When the course discrepancy was pointed out to the computer Ch'Shani, he said "oh, huh, that's odd" and fixed it, but the viewscreen was still lying.

Larsen was put on Window Duty to assess the actual course the old-fashioned way.

As far as Blesh (or anyone) could tell, the flesh Thenta seemed to be himself. The computer, as far as I could tell, did not have access to the helm console...but it has tried to get it. Another attempt came while I was watching, but failed.

We believe that we have the helm physically disconnected from the computer, but this heavior is extremely weird. The opinion of Blesh is that Computer Ch'Shani is becoming more computer and less Andorian.

We decided that we needed to introduce the two Ch'Shanis. An analysis of the course showed that we were heading towards Rowan before.

Ch'Zathri had a long conversation with Computer Ch'Shani, who claimed "I'm a freak. They're going to take me apart when we get to Deneb V." He may well be right, of course. He said that he thought Rowan would be off the beaten path enough that he would be left alone.

It was clearly time to introduce the two Ch'Shanis. A lot of discussion ensued about respecting autonomy.

Ch'Zathri told Computer Ch'Shani "you need to surrender yourself and explain stuff, and then you MAY have a chance; otherwise, not so much."

Then Ch'Zathri asked "Will you take us to Deneb V?"

Computer Ch'Shani replied "I can't stop you." We obviously would have preferred a more affirmative answer than that. There's a way that we could certainly stop Computer Ch'Shani, but none of us would like it, least of all him. Ch'Zathri decided that Computer Ch'Shani could have access to the helm back, but with the caveat that if he changed course without orders, he'd be out immediately.

A proposal was raised to change the Tara Sprinter's name to the >Ch'Shani. I think it's still under discussion.

A little later, we passed by an asteroid that was emitting radiation. No comms were coming back from it. And a scan revealed no life signs but lots of organics: maybe a giant seed? It's headed towards Tusk, but will take decades if not centuries to get there, so it's hardly an urgent problem.

The other end of its course is outside the Deneb Core. Although it came from nowhere, it's loaded with amino acids from, it appears, Wissard: a corporate-owned planet, with 42000 people and an institute of ecology. So far, it's a mystery.

Then we resumed the trip to Deneb, still months out.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.02 : Deneb V : USS Tara Sprinter

The (seven-month) trip to Deneb went without further incident.

We were about a week out from Deneb (7006.25). Weyer was on the bridge, and Captain Massey requested a subspace call with Ch'Zathri alone.

Afterward, Ch'Zathri briefed us on our new mission. We're will be on Deneb V for a while. The Academy Of Sciences was building a foundation on Deneb V, and were having all sorts of technical problems: computer system failures, power failures, Slime Devil attacks. Captain Massey asked if Weyer could supervise engineering assistance to complete the facility. This was expected to be a low-key mission.

We arrived safely on stardate 7007.02

Deneb is a pretty rich system. As a reminder, the Stasis Box was discovered on Deneb IV, and there is also a nice shore leave destination on Deneb II.

We put the Sprinter in a parking orbit and beamed down to the medical/research facility that would be taking care of the Kraken-mutilated original crew of the Tara Sprinter. I had a moment to speak with Computer Ch'Shani, and told him I hoped he survived the next few weeks and that I didn't know, if I were in his place, whether I would just start accelerating away or not. He told me he felt like he gained a brother with Flesh Ch'Shani. We generally said our goodbyes to the crew of the Tara Sprinter.

We then got ready to proceed to the Academy of Sciences. We had been issued phaser rifles, on account of the Slime Devils. We sent a transmission, which was received, but we got no reply. That seemed weird.

We beamed to the Sprinter and then scanned the Academy. It was powered-up. There were no humanoid life signs, but plenty of nonhumanoid life signs: Slime Devils. Oh, great. There were Denebians outside the facility. A little more study of their movements and a bit of applied Sociology appeared to reveal the the Denebians were at home and chilling. Not freaked out, not panicking.

Weyer looked up the nominal head of the facility, Lahlaa Aka, and asked her what was up.

"It's a disaster area there," she told us. Slime Devils everywhere, problems with computer, security, power. She had told everyone to shelter till we arrived.

We then asked Lahlaa for credentials. Ch'Zathri immediately pulled rank, and came across as something of an ass. Weyer was a lot smoother, and soon we had our credentials.

I suggested that the Slime Devils were being attracted by something, and that we should go get a whole lot of fish and dump it outside the walls, or maybe we could spray some sex pheremones. Animals want food and sex.

You can tell them from sapients, because sapients want food, drugs, and sex. The Slime Devils use sonar. Could we just blanket the place with a particular frequency and drive them out? Or set up a sonic signature that enraged them, to make them rush out and attack it? Consensus was, alas, probably not.

We beamed down near the Communications Hub. The door from the computer/security center to the hub was locked. Larsen took up a position watching the north door with his phaser rifle set to Heavy Heat.

We were trying to figure out what had been going wrong. The Denebians seemed totally competent with respect to their programming. We found some intentionally-harmful code in the computer system: definitely malice rather than incompetence.

He hadn't covered his tracks all that well, though: our saboteur was a Denebian named Kala Kakh. Ch'Zathri informed us that Captain Massey mentioned that Kovik A'Kev involvement was possible.

We didn't see any Vulcans on the scan, so no need to set phasers on Heavy Stun. I don't have any moral or ethical qualms about using lethal force on Slime Devils, which are basically just bad attitudes with fangs and harpoons.

The door opened and there was a monster Slime Devil right there. I shot it on Max Disintegrate, which did some damage. Ch'Zathri shot at it but it dodged. It fired a harpoon at me, but missed. I took another shot and WHAM, right in its slimy center of mass, but it still wasn't dead. Ch'Zathri shot and scored an excellent hit: BOOM. The damn thing was still up! As we were beginning to worry that these things were unkillable, it finally keeled over.

The little Slime Devils were trying to hide. I switched over to wide beam stun and hosed 'em down. I stepped on some of them, and Ch'Zathri zapped others.

I'd been sniffing: I couldn't detect anything that coaxed them into the facility: there was no stank or anything like that. Maybe they were transported in. Maybe we could use some stinky fish to lead them out…or just open the doors and transport them to the exit. There was a pad in the building, so we could beam the Slime Devils to the pad in the facility, and then immediately out.

We've started executing a plan: We'll get the big ones out and the Denebians can get the little ones. With the offending code excised, we believed that the Denebians should have no further major setbacks completing the facility.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.03 : Deneb V : USS Tara Sprinter

Well, our plan wasn't quite as foolproof as we thought. Mainly, the Academy building has transporter interdiction jammers, which does make sense for a research facility—you don't want just anyone beaming in uninvited.

Weyer took advantage of the momentary downtime while we thought about the jammers to snap a trophy photo with the Big Slime Devil.

It was a really big Slime Devil. Left to their own devices, and provided adequate food, they just keep growing and growing. However, in the wild, they don't really get nearly as huge as the one Weyer got a picture with. That means that the large Slime Devils in the facility were probably farm-bred and raised. But what maniac would have a Slime Devil farm?

We developed a plan to clear the room containing the transporter pad of Slime Devils, so then we could do our relay-beaming without interference. I stepped out into the room and found two groups of little ones, which I dispatched with no real trouble. Weyer then dropped the interdiction.

We beamed all the big Slime Devils out into the swamps miles away. The little ones can be now disposed of by any competent exterminator. No new ones popped in. We reset the scrambler and reported back to Lahlaa. She was quite excited we succeeded and Weyer allowed her to beam in. We mentioned Kalah Kakh, and it turns out that of course sabotage is a capital offense, because what isn't on Deneb V?

The guy could have been framed. This whole thing could be a distraction from a bigger operation. We couldn't be certain, but the evidence pointed to Kalah Kakh, and our analysis of Denebian jurisprudence suggests that, despite their love for capital punishment, they at least try pretty hard not to execute the wrong guy.

Kakh always wore an old, bulky, crappy environmental suit. Hard to ID the inhabitant. The other Denebians don't wear such things. Was someone impersonating him? Was he even a Denebian?

Weyer used his extensive knowledge of Vulcan Current Affairs (Vulcan) and found that Susash was making its play for core capital, but Deneb V still remained the capital. That by itself would provide justification for spiking the construction of the Science Academy. I did a little Criminology, and concluded that this is is consistent with the Kovick A'kev's use of non-lethal but incredibly annoying work to undermine Deneb.

We reported back to Starfleet.

Now, finally, it was time for shore leave, at least a month.

Weyer reported to Hope on the Farragut, who told him, "If you're not wearing gold you're lucky to get any mission authority." I found myself uneasy that Kakh would be sentenced to death for his crime, if convicted.

We discovered that the University at Kaklahla, on the other side of the planet, does research into Slime Devils, and they have a breeding program.

Meanwhile I do a little reading and find out that the plea bargain doesn't really exist in Denebian Law, so I decide to to run the idea of promising leniency to Kalah Kakh (if he turns state's evidence) by the judge or prosecutor. I will also make it completely clear that "no" is a perfectly OK answer to me and the Federation and will in no way harm Deneb's standing with any of us.

Kalah Kakh is enrolled at the university as his credentials claimed him to be, but he's never published anything, which is somewhat suspicious. The University is the only known source of Slime Devils Of Unusual Size.

Weyer got a call from Captain Massey and Commander Topi. They were very unhappy that we were speculating about the Kovick A'Kev being involved. If they were involved, confirm or dismiss, and cease speculation. Then out came the stick: we were to determine their involvement, or lack thereof, before we could take shore leave.

Likah turned out to be the prosecutor. I contacted her. Kalah Kakh was not in custody; he was not at home when the police went there to arrest him. I suspect he's been liquidated already, but explain the plea bargain to her. She replied that we are free to offer him the choice of Federation or Denebian custody.

So we went to his house to look for him or clues to his location. Houses are half-submerged. We knew that the Denebians don't take any offense to our acting as if their slime is icky, so we put on drysuits so we wouldn't get all slimy, and headed in. There was indeed an inhabitant at home when we knocked.

It wasn't Kalah Kahk, though. It was some old blue-collar guy who says he's never heard of Kahk but was willing to call his acquaintances who worked on the Academy project. The first one we called was suspiciously friendly but unhelpful: he was a construction worker and was done with his part before the programmers arrived. Well, this was a bust. Kakh's address was obviously fake, and there wasn't much of a lead to follow there.

Thus we decided to try our luck at the University at Kaklahla.

First we asked the Provost if Kalah Kakh was indeed enrolled as a grad student there. He is: he's in the Biology Department and his thesis advisor is Lakah Kalah, who, alas, was on sabbatical. Kakh only just enrolled when Kalah went on sabbatical.

As we're arriving, the staff showed us quite a lot of respect. Kalah's door had obviously not irised opened in months. We decided to wait for the Life Sciences Department Head Kla Ha to be able to meet with us. I spoke to his administrative assistant, explained the situation, and she buzzed us in.

Kla Ha was a fairly stuffy senior academic but offered us some cooperation. He said that Lakah Kalah's sabbatical was very abrupt, which is both irregular and surprising. However, as he was senior faculty in good standing, there were no good grounds to refuse the out-of-the-blue sabbatical request.

Kla Ha claimed, believably, no knowledge of Kalah's grad students. So we pivoted to ask him about the Slime Devil Breeding Program. Ha was terrified by our investigation, both for the reputational risk to the institution, and because I think he felt he might be a suspect, and since the penalty for basically anything worse than jaywalking on Deneb V is death….

I did some of my Cop Diplomacy, assuring him that we believed him and his department to be, at worst, unwitting dupe of whomever was behaving nefariously. I then called Likah, even though it was in the middle of the night for her, expecting to leave a message, but she took the call! With Kla Ha watching (and clearly impressed that I could just pull a prosecutor out of bed on no notice) I asked her if I could offer the possibility of prosecution under Federation rather than Denebian law to suspects we uncovered during our investigation. She graciously agreed, and that seemed to calm Kla Ha a little.

Now eager to please, he took us to Lakah Kahla's office and opened it for us, under his authority as Department Head. We entered to see a Denebian there bound and gagged; clearly alive, clearly distressed, but the door evidently hadn't been opened for months. Obviously the prisoner hadn't been in the room for all that time, as he was alive and not notably starved-looking.

And on that cliffhanger, I'll bring this journal entry to a close.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.04 : Deneb V, Deneb II : USS Tara Sprinter

The guy tied up turned out to be Lakah Kahla. "They stole my babies!" he cried.

I advised him that we were recording, and that if prosecution is indicated he would have the option of Federation or Denebian justice systems. He clarified that "Vulcans!" stole his babies. They were all male, so not T'Shin directly. He further said that he did not apply for sabbatical, and Kla Ha verified that: the irregular request did not come in person.

3-1/2 months ago, Kahla had been minding his own business and found himself transported onto a ship. That is where he had been the intervening time. The ship had two Vulcans and a human; the human was tall with long hair in a man-bun. He operated the transporter. Broni pointed out Vulcans' love of using logic to present not-quite-lies very misleadingly. Since kidnapping and theft of Slime Devil were both probably capital crimes anyway, the death penalty was not a particlar deterrent for sparing Lakah Kalah, but we have seen that the Kovick A'Kev are reluctant to kill anyway.

Kahla was extremely worried about getting his "babies" back. He told us that his room on the ship where he was imprisoned had windows. He suspected the ship was Vulcan because the text visible wasn't English. I closed my recording and transmitted this record to the Farragut, and started a new one where we asked him if he recognize any pictures. He did! He pointed out one particular Vulcan. He disavowed any knowledge of Kalah Kakh.

I suspected Kalah Kakh of being that Vulcan in an encounter suit.

I sent off a subspace message to the Farragut asking them to find out who that Vulcan might be, but Kahla told me it was T'kic. He was hired in Employee Resources. I asked Likah to deputize me and open an investigation. Now that I had a warrant, Ha gave me everything they had. T'kic is a merchant, and his ship is the Tani Voyager.

The lab that T'kic had been using was pretty empty. Nothing personal. We got his home address from the university records.

We not sure what the idea behind packing the facility with giant Slime Devils was. It all seems very harebrained.

T'kic's home address was a middle-class nondescript home with no one home, according to our scan. Larsen watch the back door while we went around the front. The apartment was furnished but completely unused: the fridge was empty, beds were made but unslept in. It was clearly a long-term rental, leased by/from University.

We found some Vulcan DNA, which we collected: hair samples and skin flakes. There was also a rudimentary security system, so we called the company it was reporting to and gave them the case info. About 3-1/2 months ago footage shows T'kic doing the walkthrough and agreeing to rent, and then leaving. Nothing since. I had a box of chocolates sent over to the security company.

We got access to local security data around the apartment. T'kic always arrived on foot, and the Kalah Kakh always arrived on foot at the Academy, but we can't easily track them back. So it seemed likely they were transporting into a surveillance dead zone and then walking in. It's plausible that they're the same person. Or Kalah Kakh could be the other Vulcan. Larsen was sure it's Kakh was not Man Bun. The other Vulcan is smaller than T'kic, so it seemed likely that it was him playing Kalah Kakh, but it wasn't clear from gait analysis, since the suits make everyone clumsy.

Professor Kalah had his own transporter, but there was nothing in the logs. Someone tried to erase them; we managed to salvage them and found that twice a day there were transports, and occasionally a single large biomass consistent with a Giant Slime Devil was beamed.

I sent Kalah a nice bottle of wine and "sorry for killing Daisy, or whatever the giant Slime Devil we killed was named."

The Tani K'taen ("K'taen" is the approximate Vulcan pronunciation; it means "Voyager") was in an orbit over both the University and the Academy, we suspected, and we verified that. My belief was that we have sufficient justification to execute our arrest warrant by beaming aboard and stunning everyone on board.

I found it deeply suspicious that a trading vessel would stay in orbit for three months. They usually ran Susash-Deneb V and back. We went where it should have been, and it wasn't there. Warp signature analysis seems to determine that it warped out to Deneb II. So we did too. Deneb II was terraformed by the Denebians. It's the Shore Leave Planet. It's hot and jungly but nice at the poles.

We found the Tani K'taen in orbit around Deneb II. Its owners told me "We just bought it a few hours ago. We do mind if you search it." I read my search warrant number to them and beamed over.

The human and the Andorrian onboard were clearly not the people we were looking for. They said they traded their survey vessel for this one. It wasn't nearby. We got three names from the crew manifest: T'Kic, human Larry Wright, and Kalak (Vulcan). They were headed for Susash.

Broni tried to determine where they had gone, and tracked them to a point in the Deneb system. Broni tried to approach but must have spooked them. I could tell they were headed to Susash but not their exact course, so over subspace I asked the Farragut to intercept: we couldn't catch them for several reasons. First, the >Tara Sprinter isn't our ship and we can't take it out of Deneb, second, the Tani K'taen is faster than the Tara Sprinter, and third, I couldn't tell with any precision where they had laid their course.

Massey said he thinks they will catch the escaped three. I pointed out that circumstantially it looked a lot like Kovick A'Kev; Topi said they're not known members, but perhaps aspiring. I expressed a bit of surprise that there was would be much non-Kovick-A'kev-related Vulcan criminality, but I am by no means an expert on Vulcan-crime-rates-not-connected-with-Kovick-A'Kev-in-the-Deneb-Core.

We were, thankfully, allowed some leave.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.06 : Deneb II : shore leave

Lt. JG (not for long) Shati Nyekundu

Somehow it seems like it had been a really long couple days. Anyway, we were in for a shock when we saw Lt. Ch'Zathri: he's wearing red! It suits him. He's going to be our Chief of Engineering on board the Stella. He also was unusually effusive, for him, about Commander—no, wait, Captain Topi: "If she were Andorian, she'd be perfect!"

At any rate, off to some well-earned R&R on Deneb II, the well-known shore leave destination.

Amazingly, Josie and the Pussycats were playing that evening. They're 1/8 Caitian, so it turns out the tails and ears are real. They put on an astonishingly good performance, and I decided to press my shore leave luck, so I went and got my guitar and asked Josie to autograph it, while attempting a perspicacious analysis of some of her solos so that she was aware that I actually knew how to play the damn thing. She was impressed, we made smalltalk, I planned to go to the rest of their shows during shore leave, we started hanging out with the band. Weyer somehow managed to get Melody excited about his pop culture knowledge (weird flex, but OK). Manheim just got way too drunk—I mean not just hammered, but steamrollered. Their horn player, an Orion named D'nas, gave him a little sober-up, and anyway, a little later Valerie, their bassist, invited Ch'Zathri back to their ship, and turned out that was a general invitation.

So we were there on their ship. Valerie and Ch'Zathri headed off to the engine room to polish some pistons or something, and I and Josie ended up in her room and I wasn't really paying much attention to anything else until the next morning. Turns out Josie's tail is prehensile.

So after that unforgettable night, we offered to roadie or be security or whatever for the band for the rest of our shore leave.

Then things got a bit weird. It turned out that Josie and the Pussycats are Federation spies, and were aware of rumors that there is tech on Deneb II that bears further scrutiny, and they gave us a location. It's a family unit of Denebians—notably, not Kovick A'kev—dealing in contraband that would be a death sentence on Deneb V (but not such a big deal on Deneb II). The Federation would like to know what the hazardous tech they are dealing is.

Josie seemed to be being cagey about the tech. I stepped aside with her in private, and she revealed that she'd gotten the tip-off from Kovick A'kev and she trusted it, but obviously she needed the fact that she was talking to the Kovick A'Kev to be kept secret. She thought the tech was restricted, not drugs or weapons, but something that would look very bad for the Denebians if the Federation knew about it.

We agreed to go investigate. Although I didn't bring any weapons, it turns out that Weyer smuggled not only a phaser, but a phaser rifle, which he let me have after making me beg for it.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.11 : Deneb II : shore leave

Josie and the Pussycats dropped us off not far from the designated location. It was located in a swamp and a three-dome compound, with a tower with some tech in it, a single entrance, and two biosigns on the top level and four more in the underground/underwater level. Signs were consistent with Denebians, but as we approached and were able to scan the underground area, it turned out to have one Denebian and three Slime Devils. That's weird and suspicious.

I was in disguise, with a big bushy moustache Josie helped me assemble and a Hawaiian shirt. Ch'Zathri had a truly ridiculous archaeologist suit on. We knocked on the door. No response, so we knocked louder. The biosigns were moving around, and, with no better ideas, I fished a bobby pin out of my Afro and gave it to Weyer to pick the lock, which he did with surprising facility. Another locked door blocked our way and again Weyer just opened it like it was nothing.

We were confronted by a Denebian who wanted to know what we wanted. We claimed to be exterminators who had been told they had a problem with Slime Devils. She denied having a problem and said they had a permit for the Slime Devils. I asked to see it, and she countered with a request to see my Exterminator License. Then she said she'd be right back with the permit. I hastily tried to forge an Exterminator License, but it was not too convincing. Fortunately (?) this has not yet come into play, as that's when things went pear-shaped.

While the Denebian was gone, Weyer picked yet another lock into a bedroom. There was a desk with a computer on it, no password, and nothing much on there. We went to the kitchen; there was another computer and this one was recently wiped. Weyer swiped the memory crystal on the grounds that these folks did not seem like professionals and probably there was still recoverable information on the crystal. Broni then went downstairs, and I heard him saying "Stay where you are! Do not approach, or I will fire!" I started downstairs to assist.

Broni was then attacked by a Slime Devil and harpooned badly. He dropped his pistol. I tried to help, and also got jumped, harpooned, and dropped my rifle and was stunned. The Devil chewed on Ch'Zathri as Manheim and Weyer charged downstairs too. A Slime Devil harpooned Manheim, very badly. Broni and Manheim both fell unconscious. I managed to recover my rifle; Weyer felled a Slime Devil. I tried to shoot the one that was chowing down on Manheim, missed it, but at least didn't hit him. It chomped him again, but he was still alive. I tried to grab the Devil and pull it off him, but failed; Weyer shot it and hit jumped away. I shot it too, and it didn't go down, but then Weyer finally took it out.

At this point we dragged our unconscious compatriots up the stairs and applied first aid in the kitchen, getting them stabilized. Manheim was in really bad shape. Ch'Zathri was not in great shape either, but at no point was in imminent risk of death. At this point we believed there were three Denebians and a single Slime Devil left.

Weyer's bravery was exceptional, and his aim was better than expected. Thank goodness he was there, because without his shooting we'd all be being digested by Slime Devils by now.

Of course, we have a bit of a problem: if we retreat, the Denebians can destroy the evidence and retrench. But half our party is in very bad shape, I'm badly wounded but still functional, and we have at least one dangerous opponent left. I'm not that concerned about the Denbians: Heavy Stun should take them down fairly quickly. However, the last Slime Devil could easily wipe us out if we get unlucky.

We had Manheim and Ch'Zathri stabilized. Lt. Ch'Zathri was back on his feet but in bad shape. Manheim...not so much.

The big humming thing in the kitchen was the environmental control unit. I suggested we stop the slime circulation or make it a really uncomfortable temperature and then wait at the top of the stairs to catch anyone who came up to investigate. It was pointed out to me that that would take days. I never took an Engineering (Life Support) class, what do I know?

Ch'Zathri and Weyer figured out how to electrify the slime to shock whatever was in it. I convinced them to tune it to "taser" rather than "electric chair" and they did so.

The only biosign we saw was the Slime Devil, so we decided to close the doors on it and check the tech in the tower before the Denebians that inhabited the house could spirit it away. I and Manheim covered the tower from the doorway, while Ch'Zathri and Weyer climbed the tower, and found some tech inside (after Weyer used his hairpin-now-a-key to open the door). According to Ch'Zathri it was a set of sensor systems and the tower is probably just a monitoring station (so we were almost certainly seen coming).

Time to brave the downstairs. After some cautious sloshing around corners, the last slime devil was trying to scrape its way past a closed door. I lined up a shot with the phaser rifle--on disintegrate--and put it down, and then out of its misery with a couple of followups. Inside was just a slime devil lair. The next northern door to the east had more slime devil lairs and waht appeared to be an adolescent's bedroom. Well, we were told this was a family dwelling, and we did see signs of three Denebians: husband, wife, and child, apparently.

Ch'Zathri had found an energy signature to the south and a power plant. Next door to the power plant room we found a tarp of high-tech material, covering something elevated above the slime. The tarp was plugged into the wall. I checked for obvious booby traps and did not find any, so I unplugged the tarp and had a look: a large hazmat storage container. It was too large for us to carry out even if we had all been healthy. We were going to need a grav sled to get it out. Fortunately we knew Josie and the Pussycats had one onboard. It resisted scanning. I re-covered it with the tarp and plugged the tarp back in.

The corridor leading north ended in a wall but the corridor construction strongly suggested there was a door there, and there was slime on the wall well above the knee-deep level of the ambient slime there. Pushing it didn't do anything, but Ch'Zathri found the mechanism and the concealed door had a stairway leading up behind it. The last remaining unexamined basement room had three crates in it; scans revealed something organic but not alive, not immediately interesting. We headed up the concealed stairs.

This brought us out in a woman's bedroom--the same one from the master suite upstairs. There were a few more crates in the room with the overt stairs to the basement, which contained clothing and weapons.

At that point we called for evac with a grav sled, and Josie and the Pussycats showed up to help us out. We got the hazmat crate aboard and then opened up the three regular crates we found in the basement. It looked like packages of drugs, but I couldn't identify them; we took them with us.

Josie examined a package, and her face lit up! "This is Ardenite!" she exclaimed, and winked at me. As Lt. Sulu might have said, "Oh, *my*!"

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.12 : Deneb II : shore leave

Josie and the Pussycats played a very nice song to thank us at the last show of theirs we were able to be roadies for. Best. Shore Leave. Ever.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7007.14 : Deneb V : Denebian Contraband

The hazmat container turned out to be full of nanotechnology. It's tech the Denebians don't (or at least shouldn't) have. It's not Federation, it's not Denebian, it's not Vulcan (since the Kovick A'Kev provided us with the tip)...could it be Kraken?

It certainly seemed to be terraforming-related, and everyone was impressed with how well, and how far ahead of schedule, the Deneb II terraforming had been going.

The isotopic ingredients matched well with the Kraken grav sled we captured, and some hacking found that there were backdoors in the terraforming code so that it could easily be weaponized.

The person in charge of the Deneb II terraforming project is a Denebian named Halka Ke. I shared all that information with Captains Topi and Massey, and they indicated that we were relieved of responsibility pursuant to this matter, and that we should resume normal duties and spend time with the Tara Sprinter crew if we were so inclined.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7008.13 : Deneb V : USS Tara Sprinter

The first Kraken-mutilated people were released. Kappa the Cat was stuck in the feline body, and so were the two Ch'Shanis (one computer, one implanted). Kappa, it turned out, was not all there—the cat brain just could not hold all the mind of a Vulcan. Moore and Howard, the brain-switched human pair, could probably do a brain transplant, but they'd likely be quadriplegics, so they decided to stay with where they are, at least for now. Some people's marriages do survive a spouse transitioning genders, so, you know, maybe they'll make it. Good luck to 'em. Cheyanne was undergoing experimental procedures and was getting a little feeling back. Mannheim got hands back. The summary: brain stuff is beyond the Federation's capabilities, but limb swaps? No problem. The crew members, in general, want to get back to work aboard the Tara Sprinter.

The Ch'Shanis knew about “The Manchurian Candidate”, which was a surprising cultural deep cut to be coming from them, but I guess it makes sense given their situation.

LtJG Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7009.01 : Deneb V : USS Tara Sprinter

The Farragut arrived, and Topi wanted to meet with Ch'Zathri on the Tara Sprinter. He later relayed their conversation-over-tea: the Farragut is more than halfway done with its five-year mission and the Tara Sprinter will be given back to its crew. If Massey (as expected) leaves Topi in charge of the Stella she wants to use the rest of the time to hunt down the Kovick A'kev and shut down their schemes, and she'd like us all aboard. Broni wanted to give the Stella a once over. Topi told him he was welcome to, and if he said that if he's late to the party that's where he is ... "don't be late," she told him.

There was then a meeting for all of us.

The Kraken matter was declassified except the victims' identity (to protect their privacy), which was a huge win for us. The general population was urged to adopt a non-participation approach to Kraken experiments (as Broni implemented). Starfleet members who participate will (if they survive) be expected to justify it. Massey too refused to let Ch'Zathri duck out of the party.

Finally, it was time for the goodbye party!

It was nice to see the group mostly fixed up. Kappa wasn't there, which was too bad, if understandable. The flesh Ch'Shani was there and I got to talk to him. The crew is going to change the name of the ship to Ch'Shani; flesh Ch'Shani is a little embarrassed, and apparently so is his computer counterpart, but hey: the ship is sapient and it is Ch'Shani, so... Flesh Ch'Shani tells me again that the two Ch'Shanis are "like brothers" but they're not the same person. I guess it's something like twins?

Massey tapped a glass and stepped up to speak; he called up Broni Ch'Zathri, who was then awarded the Star Cross, putting him in the esteemed company of Archer and Pike (!). Massey told Broni that Topi really advocated for him for the award, and that he would prefer Ch'Zathri on the Farragut, but if Ch'Zathri wanted to be on the Stella, fair enough.

It sounded to all of us like he does want to serve on the Stella! His promotion to Lieutenant is going to be permanent. So I guess that's where I'm going too; after our marooning and the Kraken experiment, I am completely loyal to Ch'Zathri; he saved us when I could not have. No disrespect to Captain Massey or Lt. Stuart, but honestly hunting Kovick A'kev on a small ship sounds a lot more exciting than two more years aboard the Farragut.

I got a bit of time alone with Flesh Ch'Shani to suggest to him that the ship be named the Bloodymuzzle instead, if they don't want it named after them. After all, I mean, he was my friend, he sacrificed himself for all of us, and it's a truly badass starship name. Ch'Shani seemed pleased with the suggestion. I can't see Cheyanne objecting, and my sense is the rest of the crew will follow her lead, so...fingers crossed. Godspeed, Bloodymuzzle and Bloodymuzzle.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7011.18 : Hautdesert : USS Stella

We continued travelling back to Hautdesert and its Kovick-A'Kev activity. Broni started tinkering with the engines almost immediately. Topi called us together for the Mission Briefing. It's four months to Hautdesert (why was Broni smirking?) and Topi asked Ch'Zathri whether he intends to continue the calisthenics regimen for the crew: she wanted to continue it to keep us in shape. Fair enough, I guess. Not my favorite thing in the world, but it's true that four months of sitting around doing nothing wouldn't keep us very fit.

Then, AW YEAH, she referred to me as "Lieutenant Nyekundu". THAT FELT SO GOOD.

The mission was as follows: we are ostensibly going to check on the fusion reactor we repaired, but really to check out Kovick-A'Kev (since they had an established warehouse there). Tellartite Aga was the administrator in charge. We captured 2 Kovick-A'Kev previously, but three escaped.

Weyer spent his time monitoring comms and trying to sniff out information. He was working with Vaat on Susash. There is a nearby-ish-to-Hautdesert system, Goch, and there's information traffic he can't account for. It's anomalous and encrypted. Suspicious but hardly a smoking gun.

Goch is high-grav world with lots of merc training…so, I mean, it was a long voyage, and we got bored, so we tried breaking some codes….that traffic seemed to be buyers from Hautdesert buying contraband weapons from Goch.

Topi made it clear we were there to catch the big fish, not the little ones. We were to play it cool and not tip our hand. Those transmissions indicated that the traffic was personal weapons and that Hautdesert was the end-buyer—they were not buying anything particularly dangerous, nor were they buying in quantities that indicated they were selling on.

Then we encountered the vacuum-dwelling colony pod. That's described elsewhere, but it was pretty cool.

We arrived at Hautdesert remarkably early: 77 days in transit. I guess that's why Lt. Ch'Zathri had been smirking at the briefing. There was no particular obvious damage to the engines; I gotta hand it to him, that was slick.

7011.18

We arrived at Hautdesert! Previously, we had found the warehouse because Rchot Tar gave us information about how long the administrator would be gone, which then gave us info about how far away the warehouse could be.

Broni gave me command of the mission, since it is basically a criminal investigation. The population of Hautdesert is only 1800, so how hard can this be? It's basically a mining town, producing radioactives and industrial metals. Its cops are company (Heavy Metal Mining, Ltd.) security. They have electrolasers, which are basically nonlethal, kinda like phaser stun, but easy to make on site. They can also be tweaked to cause a heart attack.

Given the intel we got from Weyer: huh, could modified electrolasers be used as assassination weapons? The sidearms being requested are indeed modified electrolasers, which are in actuality heart attack lasers. Fascinating! Those will look like regular electrolasers to even a fairly thorough inspection, so they would seem like a totally unremarkable import.

There followed some discussion of race and Andorians and Tellarites. I have to just keep reminding myself that Andorians have different standards than we do. It was pretty funny, I'll admit, when Ch'Zathri said he really should take me to Andoria just so that they could be all confused when he told them I was a "pinkskin."

Then we went to a bar. It was 2/3 Tellarite. Vulcans, Humans, whatever for the rest. Broni piped up: "Ugh, the smell of a Tellarite bar." "Must you?" I asked, to which he replied, "It smells like a cattle car."

Yep, here came a good old-fashioned bar brawl. Four Tellarites stood up, raising their fists and grinning.

I picked up one of the Tellarite dudes and tossed him into his pal. Then a big ol' brawl ensued. After a few rounds of people punching and shoving each other with no real effect, I offered to buy the Tellarites a drink. The fight was defused with no serious injuries, although Lt. Ch'Zathri fell down and looked like an idiot.

The four miners turned out to be: Nor Laathill Smith, Deth Skullif Johnson, Boffigh Thaorr (female), and Ton blasch Troggaohg.

Mannheim started flirting with Boffigh. Not what I would have expected, but, hey, good for him.

When we revealed we were here for the reactor, Nor seemed pissed off that Deth was being chummy with a "technician." I don't know what that's about. Broni got a laugh when he was asked "So you're not staying here?" and answered "No, I'm getting off this shithole rock as fast as I can; who wouldn't?"

We were pretty sure these folks are just miners, not criminals. Still, now that we'd gained a modicum of cameraderie, Broni started asking about "If I wanted to sell a disruptor pistol..." The rest of us played along. The guy we were talking to said "You can't sell weapons here" but also glanced towards a Vulcan woman at the bar.

Well, that was our first lead right there.

Weyer and Ch'Zathri approached the bar manager, Volk. Ch'Zathri ordered an Andorian Sunset, while Weyer asked for the strongest shot the bar had. Volk offered medical-grade ethanol, and Weyer backed down to rum and coke.

She asked why they were on "Hot Desert" and got the standard story (while the pair bragged about saving everyone's lives). Broni waved me over. Volk asked how long we'd be staying, and he lied unconvincingly.

Volk also said the bar manager job was an interesting diversion. Weyer was ... hitting on her? Trying to interrogate her? It was hard to say. Whichever, he wasn't doing a great job. A Tellarite brought Ch'Zathri a drink and he ostentatiously wiped down his glass. I got ready for another brawl, but nothing happened.

I noticed that there was a Tellarite female in the bar, not drinking, not talking to anyone, but occasionally trading glances with Volk. Weyer was convinced she was a jealous girlfriend. Broni was getting his drink on. Manheim, I became convinced, was totally flirting...in Vulcan. OK, I'll admit that was pretty baller. Volk eventually excused herself.

Weyer went looking for a place to, ahem, "jack in". He just wanted a vulnerability he could exploit, he explained. According to Broni, humans are notorious for spending a lot of time in the toilet. Do we really have that reputation? Weyer tried to hack through the entertainment machines to the bar office computer, succeeded admirably, copied their data, and left himself a back door.

Manheim eventually abandoned his flirtation. Broni ordered Andorian Ales all around. I returned to the Tellarites and hung out for a while. Nor finally said, grudgingly, that we're all right. Better than the techs here.

Broni buttonholed Volk about "a private matter" and asked if she knew who to talk to about weapons sales. "No, no, not Starfleet. Personal matter. Don't want to talk about it in front of my colleagues either." She hated to disappoint him, but weapons are Just Not On here. Security carries Electrolasers and they have their own supplier. If he could find a buyer, he'd get a good price for those Andorian pistols, but he will not move many.

Heavy Metal Mining Security might be interested in buying, she opined. Maybe he should talk to Kaallv chim Bulul (Tellarite, head of security), and Kaallv would not ask questions about the weapons' provenance. Ch'Zathri asked Volk when her shift was over, but it would be several hours.

We decided to go get a room. I wanted to stay in a crappy motel that probably was also a brothel, but no, Weyer wanted the Space Hilton Garden Inn, not the Space Motel 6. Then Weyer beamed back to the Stella anyway to work on the data from the bar.

He found out that Clarkansh chim Ruhk was the Tellarite woman; she also works for the bar. Volk arrived 3 months ago. The Gem is a legit bar, but the manager never stays more than a year and they're usually Vulcans.

There was no obvious connection between either of these two and Goch. The trail was a little convoluted, with lots of shell corporations in the way but the bar is ultimately owned by a Susash corp. There are suspicious gaps in security footage, maybe when they're moving product. It's obviously a front, almost certainly Kovick A'Kev.

They are not keeping the contraband in the room in the southwest, but it's where buyers meet. I listened to some of the recordings, picked up the street names for things and determined drugs, probably adders, were being run as well as guns.

We went back to the Gem but did not see Volk. Broni and Manheim and I had a little fake fight to distract while Weyer planted the thing, but we thought there was a guy at the bar who noticed. He was human and black. I threw Broni into him and started apologizing profusely and getting in his face so he could not watch Weyer.

Broni started talking about the Dogfight where we're trying to pick up the most Tellarite women. I kind of wish he'd picked a different cover story, but I had no choice but to roll with it. I told Broni to "Shut Yo' Mouth!" whereupon he started demanding more pep pills from Manheim.

And I explained to our new (and apparently pretty lonely) friend, Lincoln Jacobson, that after 77 days in a tin can you stop caring what their noses look like. Then a Tellarite woman started dancing with me. Hey, why not? I appear to have argued myself into this.

Very cringily, Ch'Zathri referred to the history of oppression between dark and light skinned "pinkskins," and, worse, engaged Lincoln on the topic. At this point I made a decision that sticking with the dogfight cover couldn't possibly be worse than this conversation. My new friend was named Grush. As far as Tellarites go, she was a petite MILF. She had some sores on her mouth but I really needed to get away from Ch'Zathri and anyway Manheim is good at his job; I'm sure a little antibiotics would clear up whatever I caught.

Broni and Weyer were both being awful: "don't go rooting for truffles," "how many piglets does she have?" FFS. I told them all to STFU, and left the bar with Grush.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7011.19 : Hautdesert : USS Stella

I only got the next bit secondhand, but I gather that: Lincoln was not sure that he would ever be ready to roll with a Tellarite. Weyer got done with his business and came over to talk to Lincoln, who is a miner (and a minor: only 16). He doesn't get involved with the Tellarites. His plan is to make some money and move on: easy work (for a big guy like him) for good pay. He seemed like a good egg.

Meanwhile, I was pumping Grush. For information. She told me she was one of the few people who liked it on Hautdesert and planned to stay. She warned me to be careful here because a lot of people come here to get rich and end up in debt to the Kovick A'Kev, and you don't want to get in debt to them. Mostly that debt came in the form of drug addiction and the Kovick A'Kev owning the local supply chain.

The next morning I was pretty sure I hadn't caught Space Herpes, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

We have determined that we are staying a week. The next day, Broni was supposed to meet with Volk. She was indeed at the Gem.

Ch'Zathri ordered an Andorian ale and started chatting her up. She plans on going back to Deneb/Susash after this. "The only thing longer than a Vulcan's lifespan are their memories." She opined that most people on Hautdesert, but in the Deneb Core more generally, have come out here for a new start.

Broni began talking about being shipped out to the bunghole of the universe, and was being truthful about whether he wanted to go back, and that he's got a different calculus if he is in or out of Starfleet at that point. He was in his cups and waxing philosophical, and started talking about how he basically preferred the company of non-Andorians, and that he's fine with how few he's dealt with out here. There was one Andorian on the ship, and one on the genderqueer planet we went to, whose name escapes me at the moment. I was drinking too and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think Broni may have been seducing Volk, and she seemed really into him too. It got super-weird.

Anyway, meanwhile, Weyer was going through old records looking to see if T'Shin had ever been a manager here. No. I thought we wouldn't need a week, that we'd get some proof of illicit activity in five days. We found ...

CLIFFHANGER

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7011.27 : Hautdesert : USS Stella

Weyer only had a single pinhead-sized tracker. When he and Topi beamed the case aboard and opened it, it revealed two Xindi insectoid rifles, in foam inserts in the case. I had previously recommended that he put the tracker in the case rather than on the rifles themselves: not only would it be less likely to be discovered, but it was possible that the case would be reused for further shipments and could lead us back to the warehouse. Therefore he hid the tracker between the foam and the case.

Topi stated: "the trap is set; hope they take the bait."

She then asked Lt. Ch'Zathri where we could hide so that we would seem as if we have left the system but hadn't, and he suggested behind the moon.

The case left a few hours later. It was not headed towards Goch; instead, if it maintained its course, Deneb system. Deneb is of course a hub and we would expect the package to change course there.

There followed a discussion of what to do next. There was clearly an adder-distribution ring right here on Hautdesert, and there was just as clearly some gun-running going on through Goch. But then...there were (admittedly only two) Xindi insectoid rifles heading to parts unknown.

Topi sought our advice, with a line that I suspect ch'Zathri will never let her forget: "Logic is failing me."

I made the case that we should follow the Xindi weapons. Sure, we will feel dumb if they're just being shipped to a rich collector, but there's nothing surprising about Goch gun running or the fact that a planet full of miners creates a demand for stimulants. I'm pretty sure those two trades will still be there when and if we return, and honestly, they're small and unsurprising potatoes. The Xindi weapons, however...well, that's very surprising, and could well lead us to something bigger we didn't already strongly suspect.

My analysis carried the day, and we followed the Xindi weapons.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Logs : Stardates 7011.19-7011.19 : Deneb Core between Hautdesert and Deneb : USS Stella

Stardate 7011.19

We had decided to follow the Lupus. Now we had some tactical decisions: how closely? Limit of detection, sensor range, or transporter range? I argued for sensor range.

They were travelling at warp 4...so 3 months en route. We could beat them there and wait around. I checked the Josie and the Pussycats tour schedule but alas they weren't going to be in the Deneb system when we were.

We would pass them mid-flight. Perhaps on our flyby we could somehow scan them to determine exactly which planet they were headed to.

We decided to inject some contaminants into our reaction plume so it would look like we had engine trouble and that's why we were headed quickly back to Deneb.

Stardate 7012.04

We passed the Lupus. It's a stock version of the Stella, basically. Our scan revealed a Tellarite, late middle-aged, probably. The cargo was still in place.

Stardate 7101.12

We were sent a subspace message: Meet on Deneb II and a timestamp. This had been sent to Hautdesert 10 hours before Lupus left.

Stardate 7102.16

Whoa. A Star Dragon! It was travelling at Warp 2! (and paced us as we slowed to look at it)

Stardate 7103.02

Weyer received a message in the metadata intended for me! Not broadcast. Origin unclear. It was a short message (Kovik A'Kev encryption) and wanted a password.

Weyer took it to Topi. We tried the obvious name as a password: "T'Shin". That worked. It sure was a short message: "Be Careful."

Topi said, "regardless of how they feel about the status quo, their methods are unacceptable."

I wonder whether the K-A could have a working relationship with the Kraken?

Stardate 7103.19

We arrived at Deneb Core.

The rendezvous is a few days away. Deneb 2 is lawless and illegally terraformed. Slime Devils are an invasive non-native species.

Topi was monitoring sensors and somewhat paranoid about the Kovik A'Kev. We should get a warning when the Lupus arrives.

We went to the same club we met Josie and the Pussycats at, had drinks and stuff...whatever...crappy singing. Really not great.

Broni started chatting up the Andorian singer, who was doing 20th Century Human Classics, for some damn reason. She tells him that Starfleet has a reputation for law-abidingness, although humans like living on the edge, which I guess is no surprise to anyone.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7103.22 : Deneb II : USS Stella

Finally we got word that the Lupus was arriving...

We transported down near the site. I had a Phaser rifle set on heavy stun. The site was in a remote region, but with a small reactor. There is a powered tarp and a life sign winked out. This was reminiscent of our earlier adventures on Deneb II. The tarp is obviously covering something.

Weyer knocked on the door, and a Sasquatch opened it. "What's your business?" "We are Federation officers and we are investigating contraband goods we suspect to be in this location." We could tell there were two shaggy people and a Tellarite inside the warehouse.

Weyer didn't immediately see the crate. The shaggy people started fighting us, and I shot down Kaa, who was stunned. We gave chase through the warehouse, and a gunfight ensued. I dropped the Tellarite.

The other enemy was a little cannier and a lot tougher. He took five, count 'em, five shots on heavy stun before going down. Ch'Zathri, Weyer, and I all shot him. Broni twice, and Weyer twice, and it was only on Weyer's second hit that he finally dropped.

We could see three more energy signatures, two northeast near the Xindi weapons' signature, and one northwest. We headed northeast, and were attacked by two more hairy people, Ti and Tumi. Ti dropped after four hits, but Tumi only needed one.

Broni talked the remaining Sasquatch into dropping her weapons. She seemed unconcerned and quite convinced she was not going anywhere. Weyer determined that a distress beacon had been sent off during the firefight.

We located a secret door. Behind it, Rix (a Bolian male) and Avril (a human female) had been enslaved by the "beastmen"! They offered to show us where the beastmen like to hide things, and indicated another secret compartment. We knew that help was on the way, so we beamed out with the Tellarite and the captives before reinforcements had a chance to arrive. Before we left, I told the still-conscious-but-bound shaggy woman that she was very lucky that the two captives were alive and mostly physically unharmed, and that she should hope we do not meet again. This might help convince our enemies that we were really there to rescue the couple rather than to trace the smuggled weapons. Just as we evacuated two one-or-two person ships were dropping out of the sky straight towards us.

Back on the Stella, the Tellarite claimed himself to be Lolorr Borv. He said he did nothing wrong, but that given 40+ years on Hautdesert, you have no choice but to deal with the Kovik A'kev. He claimed the Kovik A'kev aren't slavers, they just, uh, use people against their will. Borv seemed terrified of Topi. Weyer intimates a mind meld to Borv. "I did what I was told." "By whom?" "Is this a test?"

Aha. It became clear: Borv was afraid of being mind melded because if he is, he's dead. The Kovik A'kev will kill him. Borv said Topi is working for the Kovik A'kev. I stated loudly and for the record that I was sure there were no surveillance devices on this ship, and that certainly my commander was not working for Kovik A'kev.

He seemed dubious, working from the theoretical basis that any Vulcan in a position of power in the sector was mobbed up.

Borv wanted immunity and the witness protection program if he talked. Topi was willing to grant him that. Some negotiation ensued; he gave us a list of five worlds, we'd pick one to resettle him on, and it might take a while but we'll try to protect him in the meantime.

In return for that promise, we learned that...some Vulcan woman named "Volk" gave him the box. AUGH!

The captives were bruised, but not bone-broken. Used for manual labor. Lt. Ch'Zathri was in fact in worse shape than they were after the fight.

Topi called Weyer to the bridge. The viridium trace was pinging, and was travelling faster than Warp 10 (Weyer didn't believe his eyes and confirmed at a different console. That was really what it was doing). That's 1000 ly a day. They might be headed for the Murder system, but instead they headed on to Tlalocan. That's 6 months at Warp 4. Tlalocan has an ongoing undeclared civil war. The Farragut may be closer, but...this is now too interesting to pass up. I want to see who has ships that can go Warp 45. Are the ships those tiny little things that showed up as we were leaving?

Ch'Zathri was sure he could squeeze Warp 5 out of the Stella. That's going to burn up a lot of dilithium and damage the engines, but once we're there, there's a Class 4 starport there, so repairs and refits should be easy. That brings the travel time down to less than 100 days.

There's an interesting-looking binary planet, Zephyrus/Zaphyrus, in the Murder system. We're going to stop by there on the way, because one more week of travel is unlikely to make much of a difference, and surely we will all want some fresh air in a month or two.

To wrap up the other people's stories: the Lupus got a new name, paint job, and transponder, and Borv got a new identity and took off. Rix and Avril went to Deneb V.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7104.23 : Zephyrus : USS Stella

We got a little lost on the way but made it to the cheerily-named Murder system (Zephyrus/Zaphyrus) eventually. The CO₂/HS atmosphere was not pleasant. There didn't seem to be anything there.

We scanned for dilithium and other things. Zaphyrus proved uninteresting, although it was weirdly devoid of metals. Murder is a Population I star, so the planet shouldn't be that light on minerals. The rocks it has are mostly silicates, and density is only about 3 g/cc so if it has an iron core it's small. The two planets orbit each other in 23.6 hours.

We decided to go down to the surface of Zephyrus. (Not that it makes much difference bwtween the two) Lt. Ch'Zathri's suit wasn't well sealed but it was easy to find the issue and fix it. There were, in fact, caves nearby to where we beamed down. We climbed down to them; I didn't do so well, but we all got down without injury.

We found a definitely artificial structure in the cave. Panels and lights came to life: some kind of high-tech electroplasma stuff, better-than-Federation. Our signals were getting sort of jammed, and the Stella's transporter lock was weak.

Ch'Zathri thought that this machine complex was a transporter of some kind. There was a readout showing something going down, down, down. Then suddenly the lights strobed and we all felt a little sick and blacked out.

When we awoke our surroundings had changed. We were now in a jungle. All our suit batteries, tricorders, and phasers were dead. Basically all batteries on us had been completely drained of charge. Ch'Zathri cracked his suit and helmet and took a deep breath. Seeing that he didn't keel over, I also removed my helmet. The temperature was 13°C or so.

There were animal calls; the planet was teeming with life. The sun was yellow: definitely not the Zaphyrus K-dwarf.

At the very least we had been space-travelling. I have my suspicions that we might also have been time-travelling. This whole excursion is rather reminiscent of our abduction by the Kraken.

At any rate: we were on a clearly artificial platform, surrounded by statues that looked like sitting humanoids. We easily found fruit-bearing plants, and fruits that seemed like pears. Big but otherwise unremarkable insects, clean-seeming water 17 yards from the altar. In short, this planet seems downright Edenic.

We went foraging and it was easy. This is a very hospitable planet. There was a sharpened bone on the altar.

We decided to make camp on a game trail. Ch'zathri thought that the altar was clearly the transporter receiver and with some luck there might be a transmitter somewhere. I hoped so too. Weyer rummaged through his pack and came up with a solar charger. We managed to get a tricorder charged, ran a scan, and then the battery broke. Fortunately we had other tricorders and other batteries, and the charger was fine.

A topo scan gave us a decent map. We found a place that should have a natural cave (since we found the first transmitter in a cave, maybe the civilization that made these liked putting them there). There were some megafauna, and even more interestingly, ten biosigns in that cave, each a bit more than 100 lbs, and maybe 5 small ones. Ch'Zathri led the way down the creek towards them.

We slept on the way there. It seemed like planet has about a 12-hour day. We recognized no constellations; the density of stars is familiar; we did not see a Deneb-in-the-Deneb-core, so either we're on the wrong hemisphere or at the wrong time of year, or we're no longer in the Deneb Core. We did see three fairly obvious planets and a Milky Way.

That let us know we are in a spiral galaxy and not particularly near the core. The planet has a magnetic field that is aligned with its geographic pole.

....to be continued.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7104.24* : Zephyrus** : USS Stella

* Assumed Stardate back on Zephyrus.

** While Lt. Nyekundu was actually on Earth, he had arrive their via a portal found on Zephyrus.

Stardate where we're at? OH NO. No, make that Stardate AW HELL NAW

We approached the earlier-noticed cave with vital signs in it. By this time in our hiking, our solar panels had accumulated 8 scans' worth of juice in the tricorder, so we used one.

Inside we found, well, rocks and stuff. Charcoal. Wood. No tech. Three gentlemen appeared and said something in a language we did not recognize. When I say "gentlemen": cavepeople.

Two children came up to Ch'Zathri. Someone, probably their mother, was freaking out. The kids touched his antennae and he said "Friend" and did all the right stuff.

Oh look, Weyer produced a universal translator from his voluminous pockets!

Lt. Ch'Zathri said, for the translator, "my name is Broni. These are my friends."

The kids seemed to be saying "shiny stone, shiny stone." The tribe shared a little meal with us. Ch'Zathri introduced us as the Red Shirt tribe, which felt pretty good. Then somehow I was flirting with one of the cavepeople, Bhaato. She was female, attractive, 18, 160 lbs, brown hair, hazel eyes. I mean, any port in a lost-in-space storm....

These people are primitive, but also clearly mentally basically modern humans: they clearly eat meat and make bone tools. They cook their food.

And then after dinner we went out and looked at the moon.

And here, dear diary, is where I drop all pretense of professionalism and exclaim OH SHIT.

The moon is clearly Earth's moon. We ARE in the past. These are Earth cavemen. Well, I guess I'm gonna be my own great¹⁰⁰⁰⁰-grandpa! C'mere Bhaato!

Hmm. There was a big dude eyeing me suspiciously. Maybe not.

We drink some fermented berry stuff (so: they also have fermentation. That's a little weird given how inexpertly their stone tools are made; wish I'd paid more attention in my Anthropology class), and the tribe made a pitch for us to hunt something big with them tomorrow. We agreed because seriously, who wouldn't want to hunt a mammoth? Mannheim started making a sedative for a large prey creature.

Bhitos approached and wanted to try the poison. Mannheim put her off a bit, but the deal, apparently, was that we were gonna roofie the cave girl after the hunt.

Ch'Zathri hypothesized these folks might be homo heidelbergensis rather than Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons. That means that, presumably, we're not actually going to mess up the timelines since these guys are an evolutionary dead end.

They tell us that there are other nearby tribes who are kinda friendly. It's also obvious that, ahem, outbreeding with travellers is their practice to ensure enough genetic diversity.

It's cold at night. We and the tribe all end up huddling under a few animal skins. Weyer got a new girlfriend. Bhaato's man prevented her from coming over, but there was someone else friendly to me. Hey, any port in a prehistoric storm. Ghudi was her name.

The next day, we got ready for the MAMMOTH HUNT. The tribespeople gave us spears (fire-hardened wood).

There were SEVEN mammoths (as big as they seemed in the movies!) and we're gonna split off one and take it. Broni charged up and stabbed the HELL out of that one. Lots of stabbing later, myself included, and the mammoth came down. We are definitely in the tribe now.

This amount of meat should feed them for a long time.

Ensign Ch'Zathri quietly pointed out to us that he, an Andorian, has made first contact with the humans, not the Vulcans as the history books always said.

We need to get enough charge into the tricorders to be able to scan for technology. What would be the point of a one-way gate to prehistoric Earth, for the Kraken or whomever built the transporter in the Murder system we came through? Surely they built a way back and we just need to find it. If not, well, I guess there are worse places to be stranded than prehistoric Earth.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7104.25* : Zephyrus** : USS Stella

* Assumed Stardate back on Zephyrus.

** While Lt. Nyekundu was actually on Earth, he had arrive their via a portal found on Zephyrus.

Stardate ONE MILLION BC

Dear diary: I'm recording this to squirt through a time portal that will doom current me to living out a short miserable existence with a bunch of cavepeople. So you will note that this is not my usual professional tone. And, what the hell, let's do it in present tense.

LAST FUCKIN' REPORT, Y'ALL.

So, here we are, butchering a mammoth. A close-to-ten-tons mammoth. DAMN THAT'S A LOT OF MEAT. Just like prom night.

Now that we're cool mammoth hunters: Bhitos wants Weyer's Mighty Mammoth Mauler Meat. Weyer is not roofie-ing the girl. The mammoth meat tastes like steak. The berry wine probably tastes like snozzberries.

The elder (Jor) listens to Broni's pitch to show us the forbidden places, and confers with the elder women, and hems and haws. They'll show us tomorrow but not go in. Broni says that Weyer is, uh, betrothed to another, and he feels weird that the ladies are hittin' on him. Fiiiine, she'll be disappointed but won't kill him.

Hagry is probably pregnant. For whatever that's worth.

Well, party time for me! I get Birbol, as it turns out. And Ghudi. Prehistoric three-way! WHOO HOO!

The next day: a short hike to A Forbidden Place. Carved stone structure. We're gonna scan. Platform and console in there. "If we're not back when the sun is *there*, it's still a Forbidden Place. Give my love to the ladies." Little did I know.

There are stones on top of the pedestal. Does this look like a badly cargo-culted console? We touch a stone and a door opens in the platform. Parched ground through there. Drying cracked mud. Pressing it again closes the door. A different gem opens a moon surface. Let's put on our suits and get ready to hop through whatever looks like Z[ae]phyrus. Weyer tries Machine Empathy. He senses that its primary purpose is communication rather than travel. Two at once (bottom left/top right): it's night, chilly air. Great. This could take a while. Matrix of 72 stones.

Press press press and Manheim sees the pattern! The rows and columns mean something. It also depends on who's pressing the stone. Hoo boy. You gotta push the buttons and exert a will. Let's visualize 23d century Earth. Weyer picks some buttons. We see ourselves on the other side.

Experimentation. Past Broni looks up and sees the door on Zaphyrus. "Look!" TIME PARADOX! The doorway is the speaker. Weyer comes up to the other side. I moon him. Manheim thinks we should go through, collapse the loop. BOING. Oh, a force field. We tell them that they should not go through there. We send our tricorder data. Hey wait, can we be transported through?

They look like they are exactly us. "GET OUT OF THERE NOW! THIS IS AN ORDER!" They do. But not before I record this and send it out.

Well, it's been real, 23d century. I'm gonna miss you. But hey, those cavegirls are pretty hot. I guess it could have been worse.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7106.15 : Tlalocan : USS Stella

The building contained five humans. I ordered phasers set to heavy stun, and I and Lt. Ch'Zathri beamed down first into a closed room, which contained four bunks. I went over to wide-beam and covered the door while the rest of the party searched personal effects to see with whom we were dealing. Manheim found Stanley Weaver's PAD containing info regarding; Weaver appeared to be a young adult, and radicalized.

Ch'Zathri then took up the covering position while I searched further. I came up with packaging addressed to Susan Gray, another young adult, also radicalized. I also found a photo of five people. Two young humans (late teens), an older Hispanic man (gray-haired), an older Caucasian man (graying), and an Asian woman appearing to be in her late 20s. In the photograph they were all wearing tactical gear.

The building construction was low-tech and local, but the room was full of Federation-tech-level gadgets. We heard an electronic humming from another room and cautiously investigated. In the rest of the building we found empty prison cells, the crate we were looking for, and three pretty decently-constructed containment chambers.

Further exploration: we came around a corner, and the Asian woman was running towards us. I stunned her and tied her up, as well as relieving her of her weapon, a locally-made laser. I opened another door revealing the older Hispanic man, and the gun misfired. Weyer attempted a tackle, and I was then able to stun and immobilize him as well.

Then I sneaked up on the next guy, who was over by the containment field, and quickly brought him down; there was a woman near him. I took her down as well.

By this time we'd found recordings: these five are making weapons with a fabricator. That would explain why they want Xindi weapons. Three people of a species we hadn't seen before came in on the recordings at some point. Big beefy bald warrior-looking types with six fingers on each hand. Are these the people with the super-fast ships?

The graying Caucasian man then ran up and took a shot at me. I dodged and dropped but he hit me anyway, burning a small hole in my monocrys but causing no real injury. I returned fire, he dodged and dropped, we exchanged a couple more shots, and then he shot me and did succeed in hurting me. Fortunately, at this point, Lt. Ch'Zathri charged in, guns blazing, drawing my antagonist's attention. I struggled to my knee and took aim while he and Ch'Zathri traded shots, and dropped him too.

I would like to point out, as a matter of personal and institutional pride, that this is what Security Officer training is for: I neutralized five of five antagonists in this encounter (with, of course, the help of my teammates: but the stunning shots were all mine).

Worryingly, it seems that these humans are analyzing transtator technology. There were transtators in the southernmost containment field, which we beamed aboard. The next one had some sort of mineral, which Weyer told us was rubindium, used in laser technology. The third field contained Denebian Slime Devils, which were swiftly humanely euthanized. The final field contained a single Xindi-Insectoid rifle, mid-disassembly; the weapons crate was empty, but for the viridium patch, so we were still missing one insectoid rifle.

The two kids (Stanley and Susan) then woke up and were not happy. I ask them why we should support them (as they seemed to think we should). They told us that their government commits atrocities and oppression that no one can abide, but they were strangely short of specifics and could not actually think of any. I asked Anna (the slightly older Asian woman) if the tall six fingered individuals brought the Xindi rifles. Only the one rifle had been brought to them.

We gave our captives food and water. They seemed earnest, and it seemed like they genuinely wanted to help us understand how terrible their government was, but when they tried to reach for specifics, it was like their mind skittered off of it and they covered that with a non-specific screed.

The rest of the boxes turned out to be more weapons, weapons parts, et cetera. We also found a contact for Grady (the graying Caucasian) if he were to find out anything cool about the Xindi weapons.

Futher interrogation of Grady revealed that there were definitely blocked memories in his mind. Effectively, there were very specific wiring blocks in his brain. It's not Kraken tech: this was psionics. Vulcan, perhaps? Could this be the Kovick A'kev again?

As my father said, "God rewards us for letting the small ones go." Thus we determined to use Grady as bait: give him something juicy about the Xindi weapons and turn him loose. We suspect the bald warriors will show up to the meet when they think he's got something.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7106.16 : Tlalocan : USS Stella

The five people we released on their own recognizance, as it turned out, had immediately contacted their handlers.

Three of the big bald warriors beamed in. Weyer lost tracking, but we found a stealth ship nearby. The bald warriors stayed on-planet and we had a pretty good idea where they landed.

There was a building with five human signs, two signs from one unknown species, and one sign from a different unknown race. Sensors were being actively blocked in the northwestern corner of the building, which was large: roughly 50x30 meters. The biosigns were concentrated in the west side of building: two similar unknowns near the five humans, with the unique one in the northwest. There was a vehicle—possibly a small spacecraft, possibly a large ground vehicle—to the southeast of the building. There were also three small vehicles, each single-person, and not spaceworthy.

We beamed down near the unique unknown; it was ten yards north, with everyone else twenty-five yards west. We were in a suite with clothing for both humans and the bald warriors. Weyer somehow was carrying a stun grenade in his pocket, which he handed to me. We did an active scan, and then I threw the grenade where the biggest clump of beings was.

Boom.

The two big scary bald guys went down, for minutes.

I ran up to a door, set my phaser to wide-beam heavy stun, and saw the five humans. So I wide-beam-stunned them, and all of them went down. They were unarmed. I began tying them up while everyone else went after the third unknown. As it turned out, he looked like a snake with arms and a head. He was gathering stuff. Lt. Ch'Zathri ordered him to stop it, while taking aim. He did not stop it, so Ch'Zathri shot him and he went down.

We hogtied everyone but the snake man, which turned out to be tricky given his physiology.

The bald guys' brain structures seemed to indicate psionic ability.

We checked the home records: entry sensors indicated regular traffic up until 2 weeks ago, then nothing. The homeowners of record were Antonio Burton and his wife Olive Burton.

We found a Xindi-Insectoid rifle being analyzed. I'm went to check out the little spacecraft. I didn't recognize it, but based on the size and design, it shouldn't be warp-capable. It was not Federation make, probably not local to Deneb Core. Possibly it was a Kronen (the bald warriors' species name, which Ch'Zathri knew) ship. We wanted to impound that thing; I suggested Ch'Zathri have some fun and just fly it up to orbit. YOLO!

Then we analyzed the contents of the cooler. Unfortunately and disturbingly, some of the leftover meat is human tissue. Analysis showed it to be the two homeowners.

The unknown ship was designed and built like that Kraken grav sled. Could the snake-man be working with/for the Kraken? There was some sort of crystal compound in the chem lab.

I pointed out to the five humans that they were a) in a heap of trouble and b) cannibals. They did not want to believe.

The crystals turned out to be nucelogenic crystals. Living material had to be used to make it. The left side of the Snake-Man's room was a research lab. That lab was analyzing human and Vulcan DNA. Kronen and Snake-Man linked to remains. The research was in an unknown language; we beamed it all up.

The outbuildings were less interesting: a garage with three hovercycles and a shed.

I interrogated the humans, but, as before (and probably as a consequence of psychic tampering), they couldn't remember anything important.

Then I tried to interrogate Snakey McGee (hey, I should get to name him, right?) onboard the Stella. I didn't get much. He cheerfully admitted to ordering the killing of the homeowners, and to eating them.

He was routinely listening to Federation comms. We judged his intel gathering to be a prelude to open war. Commander Topi has passed that up the chain of command, as this clearly exceeded all our pay grades. We had no indication at all of the Snake-people's strength as an enemy.

We turned our captives over to the local authorities and went on our way. I expect, given his lack of concern, Snakey McGee will have little difficulty escaping.

Tactically, this was a very successful mission: all enemies neutralized, no injuries on our side. Strategically, it's very disturbing but also, at this point, out of our hands.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7106.17 : Tlalocan : USS Stella

Well, the Federation's got a problem on its hands.

The last time the Federation was at war was the Klingon war. And now we might be at war with the Snake-Folk. The bald warrior guys were probably psionic and keeping the humans brainwashed, and definitely in thrall to the Snake People.

Topi talked to Massey and determined that investigating the Snake-Man threat is now our only priority. We need to interrogate the Kronin, dangerous as that will be because of their psionic abilities.

Weyer cracked the encryption on the datapads and found they had security measures in place: the Snake-Man had measures to keep the bald warrior guys in line, things like remote shutoffs for laser pistols.

The Kronin/Snake-Man ship was the crazy-fast one. The Kronin were known to Ch'Zathri, but not for crazy warp tech. So that's probably Snake-Man. So we hypothesized that the Snake-men were the creators of the hyper-warp stuff and are using Kronin as their goons. Kronin were first noted 13 years ago in Deneb Core.

We went into the penal colony to interrogate the Kronin. There was a Vulcan woman waiting for us. I pre-consented to mind-monitoring so she could tell whether I am being controlled. She confirmed that the humans had been ... altered.

The Kronin, imprisoned together, have said absolutely nothing. Snakey McGee was chatty but unhelpful. We picked the Kronin with the most scars and interrogated him first: Special Lt. Nalu Jeu. I get his name and then immediately blew asking him for his organization. "I have consented out of courtesy. You will get nothing from me."

I told him we are a civilized and mostly honorable people and we will not resort to barbaric methods, and he was free to refuse to answer questions.

There was a collar around each of the Kronins' necks that was not removed.

Kronin mind their own business or it is a fight. There are not pleasant social encounters with them. Lt. Ch'Zathri analyzed the collar: enough power in the collar to kill the wearer, but not bystanders. I asked Jeu if we could remove it, and he asked "Why would you do this?" I said "To be sure you're choosing not to answer." "Where would we do this?" "Sick Bay on the space station."

He agreed and asked that I tell his compatriots what happened if this fails. The surgery succeeded. He asked that we do it for the other two and we agreed; those worked too.

We tried to resume a ... less coerced interrogation. Athroso the Andorian jailer winced when we came back down for no apparent reason. Pilot-Fifth stopped. Jailer Betty also shook her head. Had we just taken off the Kronin psionic limiters as well as their killswitches? I relayed my suspicions to Shras, who lowered the force field and collapsed.

I stepped up to Shras and I took his weapon from its holster. Manheim readied a hypo spray.

I shot at Pilot 5 and missed. Broni aimed. Manheim raised the outer force field and Pilot 5 dropped the inner one. I checked Shras's vitals. He was, fortunately, fine. I asked Jeu to continue the interrogation and he just stared ahead. Oh well. I guess that refusal was uncoerced after all.

Jailer Kathy tried to drop the force field, and I slapped her hand away and carried her away from the controls. Broni started cooling the Kronin cell. Someone was influencing Broni telepathically. Broni was going to overload the plasma conduit, or maybe rapid-pulse the field so we can sort of shoot through it but the Kronin can't get through. Pew pew!

When Pilot 4th went down, Broni felt much better. We got the guys back in their cell and the forcefields back up. The Vulcan jailer recommended they be removed and held in a facility for psychic prisoners.

I went to interrogate the Snake-Man. This did not go great. Transcript follows:

ME: "Hey, Snakey McGee, was that your murder collar on those guys?"
HIM: "Yep"

ME: "How come you let 'em have those fast ships?"
HIM: "Their ships are not so fast."

ME: "Why do you want to go to war?"
HIM: "Conquering is not war."

ME: "Do you have a name you prefer?"
HIM: "Kaa."

HIM: "Why did you take the collars?"
ME: "I wanted to get their uncoerced refusal."

HIM: "You're going to make friends with the Kronin?"
ME: "Probably not. They also seem like jackasses."

HIM: "What is your name?"
ME: I told him my name and rank.

HIM: "We will meet again."
ME: "I'm sure we will. I don't look forward to it."
HIM: "You should not look forward to it."

So...we got problems, and these Kaa are ... some of them. A lot of them.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7106.18 : Tlalocan : USS Stella

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7106.20 : Tlalocan : USS Stella

While taking some R&R after dealing with the Gormelite attack on the farmers, I experienced missing time. I woke up in a booth in a bar, and I somehow knew where and when a Kaa shuttle would be in orbit and that I could beam in. Further, I knew it was imperative that I get in and out without being noticed.

I immediately called Topi and told her all of this. She told me I should beam back, and I replied "I'd really better not." Turns out that the shuttle location would be above where the Gormelites were in jail. I recommended letting myself be beamed up to the rendezvous. I possess no important secrets.

My hypothesis was that the Kaa with the Kronins' pyschic abilities were trying to turn me into a Fifth Column. That's fine. I gave my teammates my permission to kill me if I seemed to be acting suspicious.

Weyer flatly refused to let me go alone.

There would a brief window while all the shields on the shuttle would be down when something can happen. I volunteer for a ridiculous grenade to take those bastards with me; however, Lt. Ch'Zathri's use of tactics revealed that it would take minutes, not seconds, to get the Gormelites out, so perhaps my blaze-of-glory exit won't be required.

I and Weyer were to beam in first, then Broni and Manheim. The ship appeared on schedule. It was not very big, maybe 25 yards long. We transported in to the cargo hold: there were some crates and stuff, and maybe a ramp.

Weyer uploaded a virus into the computer and managed to hack security override access to the shuttlecraft, and also got the ship layout. Weyer started checking crates: bioweapons. The rest of the team arrived as Weyer found some information in the Kaa language saying the ship belongs to the General.

So...have we beamed into a Kaa trap, or did the Kovick A'Kev mindrape me again, and we're being fed info by them because the Kovick A'Kev and the Federation each have a worse problem than one another right now?

I honestly don't know, but it occurred to me that you can't spell Kaa without Kovick A'Kev.

I reached to open the only door; I and Lt. Ch'Zathri made our way aft to the engine room. The nacelles use nucleogenic crystals, but Broni took a look at the machinery and decided these were not the fabulous Warp 45 engines, but in fact not warp-capable at all (as one would expect from a shuttlecraft).

The gear and kit in the locker room opposite the head looked like Gormelite stuff, and no Kronin gear was present.

The crates in the cargo hold turned out to contain laser rifles, batteries, wine, melee weapons, and some quite hard drugs: superstim, adders, that kind of thing. And also, of course, the crate of bioweapons, clearly targeted at humans.

Ch'Zathri and I proceeded up the ladders to the top deck. I heard something like walking on the other side of the aft bulkhead door. I whispered to Weyer to lock the door and he did. Ch'Zathri scanned the room and found that it had two life signs on the other side and was almost certainly the transporter room. Weyer disabled the transporter as well.

I opened the other door and there was a Gormelite there with her back to me. I immediately closed the door and asked Weyer to lock it. The other two rooms up here were airlocks.

We went back down to the cargo hold and Weyer locked all the ship interior doors. Lt. Ch'Zathri wanted to take the bioweapons. I pointed out that I was told...by someone...to get in and out without being noticed. At this point, though, the situation looked more like a local warlord than an interplanetary nation-state about to go to genocidal war. Doctor Manheim wanted a sample of the bioweapons, and Lt. Ch'Zathri reasoned that the Kaa are Machiavellian and without the element of surprise they are likely to do something else rather than risk a frontal assault.

While we were discussing taking the bioweapons, the Gormelites had overridden the locks and gotten out. Weyer tried to drain life support from everywhere else but our cargo hold, and did not succeed. The door opened, with two Gormelites. After they each took several phaser stuns, while swinging axes at us (never connecting), I managed to bring one down, and Ch'Zathri the other.

We heard a shimmering sound from the upstairs transporter. The doctor eyeballed their mass, extrapolated from their characteristics to guess what humanoid species they were closest to, and injected the two downed Gormelites them with an amnesiac, and we beamed out: Broni holding the crate of bioweapons, Weyer the laser rifles, Manheim the drugs, and myself the wine.

Back on the Stella, the shuttlecraft's shields went up immediately. Commander Topi said "we should get out of here." Although it took me longer than it should have to raise the shields, we nevertheless managed to get away to Tlalocan's Class IV space station. I guess the Gormelites and Kaa will know it was us because of our ship, even if none of them will have any memories of seeing us directly.

The next day, we did some analysis. The adders were clearly Kovick A'Kev linked. The bioweapons were linked to the DNA work that was happening at the farmhouse.

Based on what we downloaded from the shuttlecraft computer, there were two Kaa involved in a scheme to test Federation war capabilities using Tlalocon as testbed.

The General didn't seem to get much interest from the rest of the Kaa regarding this foray—he had a partner. He or his partner is the Kaa we encountered.

We're missing some piece of the puzzle here.

The Kraken grav sled looks like Kaa tech or vice versa. The Kraken ship was far more advanced than the Kaa shuttle, and Kraken are spider-people, not snake-people. The Kraken have superscience, but the Kaa don't seem to. They have very good engineering, but not fundamentally different than what we're using. That Kraken grav sled, in retrospect, was weird: the cloaking was far in advance of anything we've got, but the antigrav was Federation-level tech.

What would the Kovick A'Kev have been getting out of it? They must have been involved—the adders show that. What if someone in the Kovick A'Kev has been suborned by a Kronin? The Kovick A'Kev have been fairly scrupulous about loss of life and WMDs don't seem their style. There's no way that a bioweapon attack isn't bad for business.

Topi, as it turns out, is not willing to mindmeld me to figure out what happened, except as a very last resort. We may try to find a proper Vulcan medical facility where that can be done as safely as possible. We're going to be re-rendezvousing with the Farragut anyway.

Here's my current theory: the Kovick A'Kev mindraped me and gave me the knowledge of the shuttle. If the knowledge had straight-up been a trap, the Gormelites would have been waiting in the cargo hold and had the drop on us, and they weren't and didn't. So, then what's the Kovick A'Kev motive? What if they had been working with the Kaa, smuggling drugs and guns, but then found out that the Kaa were at least contemplating (and possibly moving ahead to execute) a large-scale bioweapon attack? At that point maybe the Kovick A'Kev decided the Kaa were no longer worthwhile business partners, since it's hard to sell drugs to dead people, and it was worth sacrificing a profitable shipment of drugs and weapons to expose them. That theory is at least consistent with the evidence and with the way the Kovick A'Kev have been conducting themselves vis-a-vis loss of life thus far.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7110.18 : Rowen : USS Stella

We would be leaving Tlalacon in a week, stardate 7106.27; Cmdr. Topi granted us R&R for that time.

Our Viridium tracker showed that the Kronin shuttle went somewhere else in the system and then stopped for a little while. Then suddenly it went crazy super-warp further out. MUCH farther out: 250 lightyears. We could get there but it'd be years (they got there in minutes). We know where, and that's presumably in the Kaa Empire. Presumably the shuttle landed in the bay of a Kaa ship. Two days later, the patch signal vanished.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully.

The Tlalacon civil war seemed to be simmering down, as one might expect if the Kronin Veterans Of The Psychic Wars had been withdrawn. Apparently These Shakes are not going to Go On. Topi summoned us to the bridge, and poured Saurian Brandy for each of us.

There followed, for some reason, "Who's On First?"

After that, Captain Massey agreed that we were done with Tlalacon. He brought up a gladiator event on the forward viewscreen. Two people come out, and one was a female Kronin wearing a detonation collar. The Kronin handily won against her human opponent. That was a transmission from Rowen (a nearby world), our next destination.

Rowen is about four months from Tlalacon at Warp 4. It's known for pirates and titwillows. I had a bit of fun explaining titwillows to Lt. Ch'Zathri, who still, I think, doesn't know that it's actually just a kind of boring tree.

The trip back to the Deneb system will take seven months, so really, we would only have a month to wrap things up at Rowen...or perhaps not.

Broni let us know that he will be offered a command by Massey if he stays in the Deneb Core, commanding a Hermes-class vessel. If he stays, I intend to as well.

Then we spent four boring months travelling to Rowen.

There's probably the tech to remove collars on Rowen but not necessarily the knowledge. Manheim asked Topi if we could send that knowledge ahead. She felt like it's ethically the right thing to do, which Manheim points out wasn't a very utilitarian stance, which is what we thought Vulcans generally were, but, hey, whatever. Manheim sent the knowledge ahead.

The next month, Ch'Zathri gots a question about the Star Dragon Thing. He forwarded the question to Manheim. That was truly the most exciting thing to happen that month.

The third month, we got a message from Susash that Kovick A'kev were sending a lot of (encrypted, unbreakable) messages. We also determined that the Kronin never harmed cowering noncombatants, but they will definitely strike first.

The fourth month of the trip, we found ourselves getting lax with our jobs, and that it didn't even matter. Finally we came out of warp into orbit around Rowen on stardate 7110.17.

Our mission was to get what information we can from Kronin and then head back to Deneb.

Rowen is basically a TL 8 world, but medical is a little better. Maybe not Federation standards. We met the esteemed Dr. Vincent Coleman, who attempted the collar removal on the Kronin gladiator. He was a tall, middle-aged black man...and he'd been drinking. The surgery was not a success; the patient died.

We went to the Meadows gladitioral arena to see what we could find out about the Kronin who died on the table.

The arena was huge given the size of the town that it was in. Half the population would fit in the arena. There was no show when we walked up.

I bribed the receptionist and said we wanted to talk to the male Kronin since the female had an unfortunate incident recently. I bought a good seat and Ch'Zathri bought a less good one for the evening's fight. I told the receptionist we were there to investigate "the sudden and unfortunate demise of a promising fighter." Starfleet isn't exactly everyone's favorite on Rowen, but I placated the receptionist by saying that I wasn't here to make trouble for anybody, but I was here to make sure no one made trouble for everybody.

The fight was brutal but the weapons don't have sharp edges: clearly intended to be nonlethal. I saw two Kronin women in the audience. They both had collars on. I positioned myself to intercept when they left after the match. They were both youngish.

They told me the dead one was Pilot First, and that Special Lt. is not seeking reprisals. I told them "I'm sorry for your loss. I hope we are able to help. Here's my card. I know a good surgeon." They clearly perked up when I offered to remove their collars.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7110.19 : Rowen : USS Stella

We had been invited to the Kronin ship in order to remove their collars. Despite some wariness that it might be a trap, we were clear that the ethical thing to do was to give it a good-faith attempt. We did ask Manheim to equip us with subdermal transponders in case they kidnapped us.

Their ship was large and had four decks. They wanted to transport us as a group, but Commander Topi said that she would rather send us using our transporters, two at a time. This was acceptable to their Special Lieutenant. We went armed with sidearms, knowing that the Kronin were a warrior culture.

The two female Kronin we met at the fight were there to greet us; they too were armed. The Special Lt. was there—and so, surprisingly to me, these were the three we already took collars off in the prison. That was very interesting.

They all put their left hands on their chests, said something, and then began eating. Lt. Ch'Zathri commanded us to sit and we ate. The translator told us the prayer was sort of an ancestor-veneration homily. Dinner was a stew, chicken-and-veggie-ish, with a grain, barley or rice or something. It wasn't bad. Not great, but totally palatable.

They asked if we wanted to perform the operations one at a time or all at once? One at a time was the answer.

Special Lieutenant was the vessel's captain; clearly the heirarchy was a very military and very patriarchal structure (odd to me, since the women clearly fight). A woman was to be our first patient. Their medical tech, according to Dr. Manheim, was roughly equivalent to ours. Good stuff, definitely not superscience. We were introduced to Healer and Technicians First and Second (as far as we can tell, Kronin names are simply job titles). The Kronin did not seem to understand the concept of "allergy", or indeed that the same drug might affect different people differently. The two escorting women were watching us closely, and were offended when we were trying to explain allergies by the notion that soldiers might be harmed by food.

Weyer and I stayed with Pilots 4 and 5 and Special Lt. in the dining room while the operations were in process. We talked about my role within the team, which I described as a hybrid of combat tactician and criminal investigator—which is a kind of weird positioning of the Security Officer's role, but not too inaccurate about what I've been doing on our five-year mission. The pilots jumped up angrily, ready to fight, when I said that they didn't make the best tactical choice siding with the Kaa. The Special Lt. calmed them and I said that I hadn't meant to give offense. One of them grumbled, "For not meaning to give offense you sure gave it," to which I replied, "Perhaps this is why I am the security officer and not the diplomat."

Meanwhile, the surgery was going...not as well as it could. The healer and technicians were either unaware of a close call, or very, very stoic. Pilot 2 was liberated; Pilot 3 (also female) was next. They were middle-aged women. This operation went a lot better.

Pilot 6 was next. That went even better! Manheim was getting the hang of the procedure. He felt like the healers understand operation of the equipment quite well, but didn't have any real medical theory behind it.

Back in the dining room, Weyer did not get an answer when he asks if the ship is Kronin-built. I looked around and saw that the chairs and table are aftermarket installations, and that some displays were in Kaa text, while some were in Kronin.

So I asked again, phrasing the question as "oh, Weyer must have noticed..." Special Lieutenant replied, "I liberated it from the Kaa." "Good for you," I said, grinning broadly.

Then he started grilling me. He asked "Do you have shipyards here?" "Sure, maybe not as fancy as in the core worlds, but, yeah." "You and your four-man crew...is this typical for Starfleet?" I managed not to point out that there were five of us, and replied, "well, my commander runs a ship with a 450-person crew...small teams on small ships are not uncommon, but neither is serving on a much larger vessel." I paint the picture of our group as a small team doing little missions on frontier worlds—which, again, is accurate but not the way one would usually think of it.

Back in the operating theater: Logistics 1, 2, 3 were next. The patients were getting younger. Then Healer 1 and 2, followed by Techs 1, 2, and 3...So apparently they had their important people go first, rather than waiting to see if we screwed up on expendables. Also interesting.

We did have problems with Healer 1's surgery, but Manheim managed to stabilize her.

At that point we had the complete hierarchy of the ship: Special Lt. was freed from the collar in the prison (well, in our ship while on a brief excursion from the prison). Pilot 1 died in an unsuccessful surgery on planet Rowen by Dr. Coleman. Pilots 2 and 3 were the two women at the arena and were operated on today. Pilots 4 and 5 were in the prison. Pilot 6 was operated on today, as were Logistics 1, 2, and 3, Healers 1 and 2, and lastly Techs 1, 2, and 3. That gives us the hierarchy. Some are bronze-skinned, some silver.

Broni told Special Lt. that it had been an honor to meet him and that we were looking forward to further friendly interaction. "A drink?" Broni asked. Sp. Lt. gestured towards the water, then left hand to chest, invocation, drink. Broni asked about his family or clan. "I believe you have met them all except Pilot First, who was lost." Logistics (1-3) are all Special Lt.'s wives. The Healers and Techs are wives of Pilots 4 and 5. 15 ... well, now 14 ... people, in all.

They have been on the ship for three years. Broni asked for a tour if the Special Lieutenant had the time, and played up the proud-warrior-people with family-bonds thing. The request went over really well, so we got a tour of the ship.

The bow of the ship was an auditorium or briefing room; aft of that, the mess hall, transporter room, crew quarters, and hangars for six fighter craft.

Aha! It took me long enough to realize. The Pilots' job is to fly single-person fighter craft, operable in atmosphere and space, but not suitable for long-range flight. The auditorium seats looked original, and the Kaa don't sit—but the Kaa would have slaves they would assemble and address. The fighters also have seats, and the controls were clearly made for Kronin six-fingered hands.

Engineering was much as one would expect, with three nacelles (one on each side, one above). These, finally, were the magical Warp 40 drives. We did not think we could push our luck to the extent of giving them a close inspection.

Manheim asked one of the crew "what are you gonna do with the ship now you're free?" "It's been a few years since we were free...Special Lieutenant hasn't given us orders yet."

Back aboard the Stella, we debriefed with Commander Topi and had, this time, a proper drink.

Cmdr. Topi : Captain's Log : Stardate 7201.24 : Weyer's World (aka Skillet-d), Deneb Core : USS Stella

Captain Massey suggested that LtJG Jarred Weyer be placed in charge of a Weyer's World planetary survey. Weyer's World, formerly known as Skillet-d, the third world in orbit around the M dwarf Skillet, had experienced an incredible "terra"-forming event when Ensign (at the time) Weyer opened a stasis box there on stardate 6710.12.

We arrived at Weyer's World on stardate 7201.21. LtJG Weyer was given the conn and preformed several scans of the surface, which revealed an functioning ecosystem complete with megafauna. There was no indication of protomatter nor sapient lifeforms, so a proper planetary survey was in order. I gave them only two days as we did not want to be late four our rendezvous with the USS Farragut at Deneb. Lt Shati Nyekundu remained on the Stella with me; we continued a system survey and kept an eye out for hostiles, as Xindi had shown an interest the area.

LtJG Weyer's planetary survey report was as thorough as could be expected given their short 48 hours stay. Not surprising, given the high levels of kironide introduced by the stasis box, several species of fauna exhibited telepathic ability. What was surprising was the interspecies network the planet's fauna seem to be a part of. E Larson suspects root systems of the plants may be analogus to nerves, although there was no indication of a central brain. Interactions with some trees, two species of which were capable of agressive action—one grabbed Larson, another put Lt Ch'zathri to sleep—induced localized seismic events.

Weyer's World merits further investigation.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.02 : Deneb V : USS Farragut

This entry is bittersweet: it is my final update from my five-year mission to the Deneb Core.

On Stardate 7110.19 a ship came into Rowen Starport: the Bloodymuzzle! Hooray! I proposed we greet them at the gangplank and buy drinks for everybody.

They went back to their old trade route, and Rowen was on it—and here they were!

Lt. Ch'Zathri was curious about the two Thenta ch'Shani; he hailed them. They came on screen, and, turns out, they really did call their ship the Bloodymuzzle! There it was in big red letters on the side!

The Ship Ch'Shani was very happy to see us, and we prepared to go over there and party. I had really missed those folks.

So we planned to take some high-proof bottles over there and have a good time. Lt. Ch'Zathri turned off the replicator safeties, and I made some high-octane booze, and took it over there.

All things considered, the crew is doing well. Manheim went to check them out. All the Kinski but Cheyenne (who had her nerve endings removed) seemed to be doing great. She's moving very carefully. Of course the Kinski were overjoyed to see me, and we started partying hard.

It turned out that the Thenta ch'Shani think of each other as brothers. The one that's the AI is less Andorian, but still…not creepy. The brain-switched human couple were still onboard and doing their jobs but they keep to themselves a lot. Manheim went up to their stations; they asked how the quest for a cure was going, and he had to disclose that it really wasn't. They said, "we're alive and, other than the obvious, healthy." Kappa was still in the cat, and there's not much to be done about that.

In any event, for the most part, the Bloodymuzzle's crew were doing as well as could be expected. I and the Kinskis drank way too much; it was great fun.

The authorities on Rowen are aware of Dr. Coleman's alcoholism. But they intended to keep him because well, no doctor would be even worse than a drunk doctor.

Then we were hailed by the Kronin; the Special Lieutenant asked for Ch'Zathri and me. He wanted to know if we'd be willing to fight some of his crew at some fighting club. Since he said it would be non-lethal, I agreed, but warned him she would probably win.

My opponent was Logistics 3d. We were fighting in a ring surrounded by a painful (but non-lethal) force field. Long story short, she went for punches, and I went for trying to grapple and sumo-wrestle her into the barrier. We traded advantage back and forth for a while, but eventually I push her into the force field, which knocked her out. I was a gracious winner.

The Special Lieutenant wanted to know if I was up for another bout. Since hand-to-hand bareknuckle combat isn't really my thing, I suggested a (dulled-edge) knife fight next. My opponent, Pilot 5th, said that the current arena wouldn't allow that, but he did know a venue. So we moved to a seedier place…and somehow I won the fight, without seriously hurting Pilot 5th! He wasn't pulling his punches and was doing his level best to win. I heard from Ch'Zathri later that the Special Lieutenant had been watching me very closely, studying my technique. I think I did us proud there.

Lt. Ch'Zathri and Sp. Lt. had a discussion about fighting then; Ch'Zathri recommended boxing as an awesome human martial art that the Kronin should study. We didn't have any drinks with them: Kronin are teetotallers; they don't see the point in deliberately poisoning themselves.

Then Lt. Ch'Zathri announced his decision, which we'd all been waiting for. At least on my part, waiting with a certain amount of anxiety.

Ch'Zathri would prefer to serve Topi as XO rather than have his own command. But he said that he would insist that the three of us serve on that vessel as department heads. Commander Topi was amenable to that—indeed said that had been her assumption and plan.

We had to be back in Deneb system by the middle of 7205. That would, at Warp 4, give us time to stop by Weyer's World and see what had happened there after the protomatter had had time to bloom.

We can stop at Weyer's World on the way back to Deneb.

We departed Rowen on 7110.21; Lt. Ch'Zathri had a grand old time overcooking the engines, so we were moving well ahead of schedule.

We arrived at Weyer's World three months later, on 7201.21. Weyer was given the conn and performed some scans. There was no protomatter anymore. The whole place was, in fact, covered with an ecosystem, including megafauna! Thankfully, no sapients. He did some good work, then we went on to Deneb, departing on 7201.23. We arrived on 7203.23, far ahead of schedule—we had two months to kill.

We all had enormous amounts of accumulated leave, so I made a call to Josie, and immediately took a private transport to Susash, to roadie for Josie and the Pussycats for two months.

On 7206.01, I was back in Deneb system, having had a spectacular couple months touring.

There was a big shin-dig when the Farragut crew prepared to head back to the core.

Weyer was given a skill badge for his computer skills; we each got a commendation for our intervention in the Tlalacon Civil War. Ch'Zathri got a Red Wound Badge for the hostage rescue from the Gormelites. As a team we received a Unit Citation outstanding efforts as well.

Sylvia showed up, and straight-up hit on Broni. He turned her down, while suggesting that she join us for our next tour in the Core. It seems she's not interesting in riding anything smaller than a Constitution-class (which does make her interest in Broni…never mind).

Briggs and Avril, the two former slaves that we had rescueed, made an appearance and thanked us. That was very sweet.

And then, finally, well, something else happened. Something very special. T'Shin, of all people, showed up and…came on to me?!? I bought her a drink, and we danced around whether it was she that had given me the knowledge of where the Kronin/Kaa ship would be, and around, "well, I can't condone smuggling drugs, but I'm glad the Kovick A'Kev believe, as I do, that genocide is a whole lot worse than that, and that doing business with the Kaa is a bridge too far for them." She thanked me for keeping Topi off her back, and I mean, OK, sure, we could have pursued the Kovick A'Kev harder this last year, but with the appearance of the Kaa and the opportunity to turn the Kronin into allies or at least respectful neutrals…we really did have bigger fish to fry.

And then T'Shin beamed both of us up somewhere. I did not forget the most entertaining evening that followed, but there was indeed a bit of missing time after we snuggled down together, before I woke up the next morning in the science facility, almost late for my shift, leaving me with a rueful smile and some memories I'll keep forever.

Lt. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.03 : Deneb V : USS Farragut

Weyer received a message from Vott, the Susash ambassador: "I assume our arrangement will be terminated." Weyer suggested that the Kovick A'Kev were still going to be around and that he work with the captain of the next patrol vessel.

Massey wanted Manheim to meet him; once there Dr. Brenda Young was present, involved in the care of Lt. Cerventes/Crewman Taylor. Those were the two crewmen exposed to protomatter. Taylor was killed and Cerventes comatose, and we stuck them in a cryopod in space to get them someplace safe (and far away) while we dealt with the whole protomatter crisis. When we retrieved them they were both alive and uncontaminated by protomatter, but Cerventes was crazy and Taylor a zombie. Dr. Young feels she is best equipped to deal with them here (rather than sending them to the core); they are long way from return to duty or even society. Cerventes is getting somewhat better, or perhaps he's just getting better at realizing what his care team wants to hear.

Kla called me from the field where he's catching slime devils to wish me well. That was sweet of him. I apologized again for putting down his research subjects (and, clearly beloved pets; some people have the weirdest affections).

Two people in encounter suits recognized Ch'Zathri. They told him they were accepted for Starfleet! (They're two of the Denebians.) "We won't be the only cadets that require encounter suits, will we?" Probably not? But there won't be many others.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.04 : Alpha Centauri : USS Farragut

The Xindi tech allows a speed of almost a parsec a minute, and they voyage to Alpha Centauri only took about 14 hours; I make that out to be Warp 116 or thereabouts. DAMN

Ch'Zathri revealed he had a protege he'd like to train as our Chief Engineer. Weyer will take the Odyssey's bridge during gamma shift.

In our interviews, we found five crewmen who might have been affected by the transport. None of them were overtly flipping out. We got a little Centauran R&R. That woman who wanted me to find her brother—which I didn't—found me, and I had to confess that I had not had any word of him.

At the crew-change party we got promoted: Manheim is now full Lieutenant. I made Lieutenant Commander. Ch'Zathri was promoted to full Commander! As expected, I was assigned to the USS Odyssey as Chief Of Operations. It's actually stationed at Andor right now and assigned to patrol the Triangle: Klingon, Romulan, Federation.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.08 : Andoria : USS Odyssey

We arrived at Andoria, where I reminded Commander ch'Zathri that he had promised to show us around, and a discussion of intoxication and liability resulted.

Should we first do ice climbing, or hit the bars? In general, we decided that climbing first, then drinking, was the more sound plan, but ch'Zathri was extremely excited to check out the ship first. She will have a crew of about 100, and, I mean, sure, I wanted to go ice climbing, but I certainly wanted to see our new ship too.

ch'Zathri was horrified to see that engineering was obviously still under construction and not yet ready for service. He demanded the refit schedule and determined, curiously, that it was on schedule. Grumbling, he ordered the Tellarite crew boss to deliver five hours ahead of schedule.

I got the crew roster and was impressed and pleased by its diversity. A lot of the crew came over from the Farragut. I have three Lieutenants reporting to me, one for each of A, B, and C shift. I introduced myself to them, told them I would always be available for escalation, that I had an open door office policy, et cetera. I need my direct reports to be comfortable bringing things to my attention, and trust needs to go both ways.

[[ THE NEXT SECTION THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED AND MUST NOT BE A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD. THE PUBLIC RECORD READS THAT WE HAD A NICE, IF FRIGID, TIME ICE CLIMBING FOR SEVERAL HOURS. ]]

Then it was time to do some ice climbing: we beamed down...and then all got transported to a research facility of some kind. What happened? The tricorder wasn't getting anything. Were we in a dampening field? Weyer checked and confirmed that we were.

I looked hard at the facility door. It was rarely opened, but had been opened within the last few days. The facility was very new, and there was a comm panel beside the door, which I pointed out to Cmdr. ch'Zathri. He used it and got an immediate reply: "Yes, Commander. We are expecting you. Someone will be up to escort you soon. This is Shrirass, XO." Broni confirmed that this had to be a polar research facility of some kind. The door opened to reveal an Andorian woman and a very pale Andorian.

"I am Thyviath, commander of this research facility. I apologize for our methods but secrecy was paramount. Let me show you why you're here."

We went inside. ch'Zathri immediately stated: "Your secrecy is not my concern. My concern is that you have kidnapped four Starfleet Officers. Please explain yourself quickly." says ch'Zathri. He asked if it were a military facility.

"Not as such," replied Thyviath. "It is a Federation facility, run by Andorians. Representatives from Earth, Vulcan, and Tellar are present as well to ensure their interests are not being ignored."

We followed Thyviath. Many of the Andorians are very pale; this turns out to mean they are Aenar (an Andorian sub-race; this, naturally, was of some interest to me). We only saw Andorians, although about half of the staff was Aenar. No one wore insignia. Clearly this was a classified operation.

They were studying a Romulan cloaking device. Thyviath said "I understand you've just returned from Deneb. While you were away...there was nearly a war with the Romulans, just as you left. Admiral Kirk destroyed their vanguard ship. We now have a hostile, Cold War relationship w/Romulans, and they've been using Klingon designs on their warships. If they are allying with the Klingons that's a major political change, and bad for the Federation."

"The Romulans are Vulcans with a bad attitude," replied ch'Zathri. "How can the Klingons be benefiting from this? They hate Romulans as much as we do." She didn't have a good hypothesis.

Thyviath then made her pitch: "Admiral Kirk captured this cloaking device, and you'll be in a unique position...so, we'd like to install this in your ship."

I, ch'Zathri, and Weyer were enthusiastic. I believe the words "AW HELL YEAH" were uttered. Manheim was dubious: does the cloaking device have long-term toxic or mutagenic effects?

Thyviath said, "It's a power hog; you cannot cloak and shield at the same time." She and her research team did not believe it to be toxic. They did, however, think the Romulans might know how to defeat it. She said she was somewhat envious. Captain Topi was aware that some modification was proposed for the ship, but not its exact nature, and had agreed.

Manheim, _sotto voce_, asked ch'Zathri to support him if he needed to push Topi to build shielding. ch'Zathri asked if anyone from the unit would be onboard as support. No. We were to get the item from coordinates to be verbally disclosed later, and then the research facility would be immediately dismantled.

"You envy us, you said. If the opportunity to assist were available on the initial shakedown, would you be willing?" asked ch'Zathri.

"Yes," replied Thyviath. "Do not tell anyone about this device. Not your mother, not Topi. Do you trust Topi?"

"Do I trust the captain?" ch'Zathri looked Thyviath up and down. "I understand your question and its nature, and I do not deny the long history between Vulcans and Andorians, and I do not deny that little persuaded me otherwise during my Deneb tour...except for my experience with Captain Topi, who is a Starfleet Officer first and a Vulcan second."

[[ END CLASSIFIED SECTION ]]

We beamed back aboard and changed into clothes more suitable for going drinking than our ice-climbing parkas.

Then we proceeded to the bar--it's an Andorian military hangout, basically. I've been in lots of army bars on lots of worlds, and most of them are pretty much the same, and this one is one of those.

ch'Zathri said the "Blue Angel" was a good drink. Manheim and Weyer went to play pool with an Andorian couple. They wanted to know what enemies we've fought, so we talked a little about the Kovick A'Kev, Kaa, Kraken.... Huh. Why have so many of our enemies started with "K"? And now we're going to the Triangle, full of Klingons. The couple turned out to be Isomeh Sh'rhaoqak and her boyfriend Shyr Th'eshralrahr.

There's a Black human female in the bar. I offered to buy her a drink and hear her story: it turned out she was Lt. JG Elizabeth Jones, an Ops officer, now on the Odyssey. Good thing I hadn't hit on her yet.

She was formerly on DS-1. It's no starship but at least there's a bar with theme nights. She should have made full Lieutenant by now, but, well, she was stuck on a station in the ass-end of space.

Abab Th'shraqeq showed up at the pool table with two friends. "That is an old name." Broni offered a drink in honor of his family's service. Things were getting a little tense; these guys seem to resent Starfleet's presence. Abab recognizes the ch'Zathri name. "My father is a retired Colonel, one of my brothers serves, another did serve but is now in the government." He's with the Navy (the younger brother did 10 years in the Navy). "Did you serve?"

ch'Zathri replied, "Briefly, before I served in Starfleet. Infantry. Formative experience. My joining Starfleet was quite controversial within my family, but maybe not as much as if I had joined the Vulcan Science Academy."

The vibes were getting worse.

The name "Tholus ch'Zathri" was familiar to Abab. He commanded a submarine, because he and his crew facilitated the rescue of a sinking ship. "Here's to my brother the Hero," said Broni, draining his glass.

A bunch of Andorians wandered over to the pool table from the bar. I nudged Elizabeth and sauntered over. These guys seemed angry that the Planetary Defense Fleet was absorbed into Starfleet.

Finally, the bar brawl was on. Manheim actually clocked one of the Andorians! Zuzkus hit Broni pretty hard, but he was always able to take a punch, and stayed up. I tried to throw Modrin, but he stayed up too. Honestly, this was a pretty stupid brawl. Manheim landed another hit, I took a punch and almost smacked my opponent down but he got away. Long story short, Broni finally threw his adversary to the floor, and at that point we all de-escalated into mutual respect and drinks all around. These martial cultures. Sheesh. You can't even go get a drink without having to engage in some fisticuffs.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.09 : Andoria : USS Odyssey

Guess Who's Never Coming To Dinner At My House

We had dinner with Lt. Ch'Zathri's parents.

It was always going to be at least a little awkward. His parents are disappointed that he did not have a more honorable military career and be like his big brother Tholas The Hero.

They're also not very thrilled by the fact that his Commanding Officer is a Vulcan.

That was, as I said, inevitable. I tried to point out to Thraz Ch'Zathri that Broni's actions with respect to the Kraken and the kidnapping were hardly "rolling over." Didn't help.

What was completely and utterly avoidable was what a jerk Weyer was about everything, every time he opened his mouth. I mean, if his goal was to distract attention from Ch'zathri's failings in the eyes of his parents, he certainly gave it the old college try.

Let's pretend that's what he was doing.

In any event, if we ever get back to Earth, I'm going to try hard to figure out how to introduce Ch'Zathri and Manheim to my family, and leave Weyer behind.

At least at the end of the dinner we raised a toast to Thenta Ch'Shani.

As we left the Awful Dinner, Commander Ch'Zathri's father pulled him aside and said "You clearly have the respect and admiration of those under your command. That is something to be proud of."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I'm still not inviting Weyer into my home, though.

Before we left for the Triangle, I gave my speech, about always erring on the side of protecting the innocent, about civilian lives being more important than Starfleet, all that stuff, and offered to help anyone who wasn't happy with that find an assignment more suited for them.

Dohman showed up at my door--the guy I took a punch for way back when (although the ensuing events show that the Kraken are a pretty decent reason, albeit not excuse, for xenophobia)--my Tactical Officer--to say if there's a superior order, he's following it. To which I replied, "yes, in the unlikely event that there's a case in which I choose to disobey my superior, I am doing so and intending to face the court-martial, and you may consider my orders illegitimate at that point." Good thinking, that man.

Then we headed for The Triangle.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7206.12 : near Echo 1 : USS Odyssey

Our departure went smoothly. A few days later we decided it was time to test the cloaking device.

Commander Ch'Zathri has an encyclopedic knowledge of all the crew and their service history. It was really very impressive. He very meticulously selected trustworthy crew to handle the shuttle that would take observations of the Odyssey while it was cloaked.

We came out of warp, and Weyer began a routine sweep of the area, just to be sure we weren't being tailed. Good thing, too: there was something at the edge of the sensor range. Obviously we weren't going to carry out the test with an unknown observer lurking.

Whatever the bogey was, it was small, artificial, and travelling along our wake. It appeared to have eight power signatures close together. The active scan claimed there was something there, but when scanned it immediately moved out of range.

We laid a sensor buoy trap for it, and a little later caught a glimps of something that looked like it had Vulcan design elements. We couldn't get scans inside it—perhaps a tritanium hull? While it had Vulcan design elements, it was not a Vulcan ship, and had no transponder. It was conspicuously unmarked. Someone's stealth craft.

Our buoy stopped transmitting abruptly. Presumably our nosy friends discovered it.

We tried to hail the mystery ship as per protocol. It did not reply, but the hail completed the handshake, so it was certainly choosing not to reply, rather than being unable to reply.

Clearly something had heard that we had a cloaking device, or at least some sort of exciting experimental tech, and wanted to spy on us. I proposed "testing" a decoy technology, like, I dunno, a photon torpedo but purple. This was deemed to be a dumb idea.

A slightly better idea was that the intruder clearly wanted to stay at the extreme edge of sensor range—so they might well be using our transponder for guidance. If we could find another system with, ideally, a Miranda-class ship (or less ideally, any two-nacelle vessel) we could swap transponder signals for a while and lure our new friends away. Starbase 12 was kind of near our route, so we planned a detour, and Commander Ch'Zathri began disconnecting the cloaking device, which we planned to hide until after we left the starbase.

While making the trip to the Starbase, we ran a combat simulation: our ship versus a Klingon D-7. I was tasked with gunnery. I waited for their action, and when they fired their disruptor, I replied with a Photon Torpedo; both hit. Commander Ch'Zathri, in the captain's chair, ordered me to train phasers on their impulse drive. I hit it, penetrated their shields and their armor, and their impulse engines blew up, at which point they immediately went to warp. Somehow I suspect that fighting a real Klingon vessel will be harder than that simulation was.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7207.11 : Starbase 12 : USS Odyssey

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7207.13 : near Starbase 12 : USS Odyssey

We decided to not take the most obvious route to our destination. In particular, going through Nausicaa with Federation colors might not be the best idea, and given that we are trying to keep our modification a secret, contact with other worlds generally, probably not a good idea.

Weyer checked to see whether we had really lost our tail? No sign of them.

It was horrifying to realize that my job was basically Administration now. Leadership at least sounds better.

While doing crew audits, Cmd. Ch'Zathri found out that Joe Moore was bad at his job. Like, really really bad. Was he asleep during his whole starbase assignment? Or do we have an imposter? Ch'Zathri called him in and asked how he was adjusting. "Thank you for the opportunity, definitely much more exciting than previously..." "It's different than a starbase but I feel like I'm picking up on things and the other crewmen have been helpful."

Ch'Zathri wasn't buying it: "Your performance is less than adequate. It is my judgment that you are perhaps lacking familiarity with certain protocols." "Uh, that's possible. I mean I have no starship experience." "I'm going to assign you some study. Reactor and propulsion first." "I am going to give you a surprise exam on these."

Finally, it's time to test the cloak. I pulled the big Frankenstein knife switch. Damn, no knife switch, just boring buttons at the console. Oh well. I energized it. At the debrief, it seems to have worked: we were invisible to all sensors. No EM, no tachyons, no neutrinos. We can't do it forever—it creates a lot of waste heat.

I turned on the cloak again, and then we started moving under impulse. The gyro maneuvers worked flawlessly, but the thrusters did give off an attenuated signal. Test #3: there's a very faint trail but it'd be very hard to track. The cloak heated up too quickly.

There seemed to be some alarming biological implications from continued use: "cold to syphilis, it's probably syphilis."

This next section is confidential and it's hearsay and rumor anyhow.

I will only say, that, if one of us was going to make waves by making an inappropriate pass at an underling, I would have bet good credits it would be me, and not Weyer. Damn, this is a weird universe.

end confidential section

During Gamma Shift, Joe Moore came to the bridge. He sat down at the comm station, and started operating controls. Weyer (who had the conn), went over to the Master Situation Station and discovered that Moore was sending a message. Weyer decided to capture the message and not deliver it.

Moore sent something encrypted and wasn't supposed to be on the bridge.

Weyer requested that he report to the briefing room and alerted Security to pick him up immediately if encountered. We all wanted a little chat with Mr. Moore.

He was not headed to the briefing room, he was on Turbolift 5, and was intercepted and delivered by Security.

He said sending the data was on the list of his duties; we called his superior, Lt. Wen Jingyi, in and he reported that he gave no such orders. I and Moore and two security officers left to go retrieve his datapad and see whether it contained that order.

I could not tell if he was lying or if he was more nervous than he should be. We got to his quarters and his datapad is missing. I immediately put him in the brig, and raised the forcefield over his protestations. He said there was a party for Crewman Lenard Lewis and asked whether he could have some cake from that? Sure—I ordered it to be brought up but run by medical before being delivered.

Weyer, meanwhile has been doing some cryptography on the message: the code is not Federation encryption. The contents were a dump of everything Moore could get. We believed it got out. Moore knows exactly where the device is installed and sent that to whomever the message was sent to.

Meanwhile: I finally got to do some actual non-administrative work for a change: doing some Security Operations to find Moore's datapad. He never checked one out and never checked one in. His location data shows he did go down to the deck where the device was. He had no legitimate reason to be there. It's VERY unusual for his datapad to have never checked in with the Odyssey.

We decided to have a guard on the cloaking room door 24/7, and to require a biometric scan to get in. Two guards when we're not at warp and our shields are down. We'll put an ancillary shield around the device when not in use and seal the other two entries into the room, so there's only one way in and it requires biometrics.

About this time a horrible thought occured: what if we ARE being tailed by someone ELSE, who also has a cloak?

Our cloak leaks some energy…but the rumor about Romulans is that they don't use antimatter, they use teeny singularities. So they dump their waste into that and don't have to expel bad stuff. Yikes. Discussion of singularities ensued.

We wondered whether we could use a modulated force field to absorb the cloak radiation.

Anyway, we went back to the brig with the doctor to give Moore a once-over. Moore pulled something from his pants and put it in his mouth.

We rushed the cell. Manheim yelled "drop the forcefield" and I tackled Moore, planting my head just below the sternum. Manheim ran in and jabbed him with Propoxyphene Hydrochloride. Moore's eyes rolled back and he began foaming at the mouth. I ran out and grabbed a cup of coffee from the guard room and rinsed his mouth with it. By then he was both convulsing and barfing and we saw part of an ampule come up.

I reached for that but was told by the doctor "Don't touch it; we don't know how toxic it is," so I didn't grab it. A medical team was on its way. The ampule is not standard Federation pharmaceutical packaging, and the casing was quick-dissolve. Dr. Manheim briefly consulted his tricorder, then his extensive knowledge of poisons: this must have been a modified Dimorus Rat Dart Poison. Ingested, it should kill quickly—a very strong individual might last a minute.

The medical team got Moore stabilized, and I went back to an examination of his record: his record is excessively bland. Criminology suggested that the lack of clustering in significant dates was in violation Benford's Law and that these records were, therefore, very likely fraudulent.

Manheim suggested that I tell Topi that Moore was dead. I refused to deceive my CO and pointed out that even if I thought it was a good idea I'm an awful liar. Manheim nodded thoughtfully, brought Commander Ch'Zathri down and had some conversation I could not hear in the hallway outside.

The better story is that Moore was in a coma and near death. Which…had the advantage of being true (or shortly would be). The doctor started interrogating him. We could not tell whether he was lying. He said again that he sent a coded message, but again repeated it was on his duty list, and that he didn't even know what it said. He claimed (believably) to not remember anything about a pill.

He badly wanted the restraint off. Moore tried saying he had to pee, tried dry-heaving. I wasn't buying it, and left to go wait in the hall.

Doctor Manheim scanned him and found out he was not human. Orion, in fact, but very convincingly surgically altered to appear human. Fascinating that we took him alive (for now). We found no non-Starfleet records of Joe Moore: it appears to have been a constructed identity, not an ID theft.

Captain Topi called a Senior Staff Meeting. Before that, it was coma time for Moore.

Unsubstantiated scuttlebutt

Moore's vitals got unstable, so Manheim backed off on putting him into a coma and left him conscious, but restrained and sedated. No idea if that's true. Lotta loose lips around here.

End scuttlebutt

Moore either had some serious mental manipulation going on, or he's a really good liar. I favor the second hypothesis, but it is actually plausible he himself does not know he is an Orion.

At this point we can pretty safely assume Syndicate involvement: we were followed by an Orion scout ship, and our Stealth Orion sent a message in an Orion code. Topi approves my calling Starbase 12 to ask them to find out who received the message (we have, after all, exact transmission time and envelope-ID and everything) and tell them that person is an Orion Syndicate agent.

We then planned a guard regimen; Joe Moore, if he makes it to our next port of call (my money is on him sweet-talking someone into letting him out of his restraints before then, at which point he will successfully commit suicide), will there be turned over to the authorities.

Capturing Orion criminals alive is actually so rare that none of us know what the Syndicate does to someone who doesn't manage to kill themselves upon capture. I'm willing to bet it is extremely unpleasant.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : supplemental : near Starbase 12 : USS Odyssey

Weeks before we got to Lorillia, I was summoned to Med Bay, where I met Topi and Manheim. Joe Moore was under the impression that if he is taken alive, his family will be killed. This does not seem implausible, given what we know of the Orion Syndicate.

He won't talk until someone proves to him that his family is safe. He gave us the planet and address where his wife Hivvi and daughter Gerto were living. We promise to try to get them into Witness Protection, and we move him into the morgue in an induced coma…but not quite dead.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7207.28 : near Starbase 12 : USS Odyssey

We were cruising along peacefully during Alpha shift: Topi in the Captain's Chair, and Larsen on sensors. He found an object in open space, and we adjusted our course to intercept.

My fingers were itching to get on that knife switch and try out the cloak under actual conditions, but the Captain said "no".

The object was artificial. It had weak, diffuse bio-signs in it. As we approached, we could determine it was diuranium, so probably a standard hull. Closer still, and we deterined that it was an old Vulcan private design, scout-ship sized, probably a trading vessel. It had no power and appeared derelict, although there were no obvious signs of damage to the hull.

Ensign Seger hailed the vessel without response. Sensors showed it was pressurized, and Cmdr. Ch'Zathri called for an away team. In addition to the Usual Suspects, we took Security Crewman Barick Davis along as well.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri ordered that we carry Phaser IIs and wear rebreathers.

A scan revealed that it was a four-deck ship: the top and bottom levels have many individual cabins, while the middle two were one big space.

We transported to the best-guess-of-where-the-bridge was, on the second level. The ship was dark and quiet and there were living, green vines all over everything. This was immediately and ominously christened "The Green Dread." Larsen was very excited about getting to use his botany skills. We could not see any corpses, which actually wasn't very comforting at all.

The vine appeared to be all one species. We determined to trace the tendrils to the trunk, which meant going down a deck. Sensors indicated that O2 concentration inside the ship was very (but not explosively) high. We descended to Deck 3 and found lots more green stuff. Larsen was really excited. The vines continued, clearly coming from a source farther down, trying to determine where their source was. Ch'Zathri sent Lt. Weyer to locate the bridge, presumably up on Deck 1.

Down on the fourth (bottom) deck, Cmdr. Chzathri found a body. It was definitely humanoid, probably Vulcan (judging from the ears), mummified, dead about 100 years. It no longer stank. The relative humidity was fairly normal, about 20%, neither super-dessicating nor humid. We forced open the door to the reactor room, which was plant-free.

After some time Larsen found a lavatory that had been converted to a hydroponics bay; the vine was growing out of it. Was this an experiment gone wrong? Could it have gone right?

Larsen recognized the vine as Kofo, common on Vulcan. It's basically the Vulcan analog to ivy. Why did someone want to grow it? It's non-toxic but not delicious, it's ornamental if you're into that sort of thing, it's not known for having any particular medicinal properties.

Weyer found the bridge and began looking for logs; in a short time he got the console working, and since he reads Vulcan fluently, he began perusing the ship's logs.

While Cmdr. Ch'zathri worked to get the reactor going, I did what I could to assist Larsen. He quickly determined that the Kofo had been genetically altered. Indeed it seemed like it was altered to ingest whatever they were refining from the ore, which, upon analysis turned out to be Trellium? Trellium was commonly used as an insulation against anomalies, so Larsen hypothesized that we could use the plant to protect us from the harmful effects of the cloak.

Something else strange, though: the Trellium is a neurotoxin to Vulcans and drives them insane over time. Why did they refine it then? Could the anomalies be worse than that? Well, yes, as it turns out. An anomaly could be an instant hull breach and death, as opposed to a lingering one from Trellium poisoning. I'm not sure that's an improvement, but…

The crew had stopped keeping logs before they modified the plant. So they were crazy before they decided to grow a giant Kofo? This all seemed weird.

Ch'Zathri reported that the reactor stopped being maintained and shut itself down when its sensors indicated it could no longer operate safely. Most likely there was nothing really wrong with it that maintenance and elbow grease could not fix.

The ship was naamed "Daam."

We only ever found the one body. We found indication of Vulcan-on-Vulcan violence, bloodspots and so on, and indications of struggle in the ship's security log. The hull had been coated with Trellium on the outside of the ship (which explains why the plant was found along the outer walls of the large bays: it was growing towards its food source). We still don't know what happened or where the bodies of the rest of the crew might be. We did determine that the Vulcans were eating the plant (which itself contained very high concentration of Trellium). This was extremely weird. Is Trellium poisoning…pleasant to a Vulcan when it's happening?

The airlock, transporter, and shuttle logs gave no indication that any of the crew had left the ship.

Larsen was excited about the possibility of using the plant to shield our ship from, primarily, the harmful effects of the cloaking device, but secondarily, any anomalies we might encounter. But is there any way to do that without giving our captain SPAAAACE MADNESS?

Larsen wonders if we could, perhaps, grow the vine between the deck plating and the hull? That might be sufficient to prevent exposure of the crew to Trellium (except for those unlucky few who need to work between the deck plating and the hull--but since Trellium is harmless to everyone except Vulcans, we just don't put Vulcans on those duties).

We took samples of the modified plant, called in the derelict per protocol, and continued our journey.

We should arrive at Lorillia on 7208.12. In the meantime, I overheard discussion, and apparently it was common knowledge that there was an Orion in the medbay. Not the best operational security I've seen. I changed up the security shifts and impressed on the new guard crew (I believe successfully) that they are under no circumstances to engage in conversation with the prisoner, and that it was of utmost importance that we deliver Joe Moore alive to the local authorities at Lorillia. If he talks his way free or to suicide after that and before his trial, well, that's unfortunate, but at least the failure will not have occurred while we were responsible for him.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7208.12 : near Lorillia : USS Odyssey

Lorillia is coming up soon, and Captain Topi called a senior staff briefing. Do we change our transponder back to its correct pattern? Captain Topi decides that we should not. Should we restrict shore leave? No, but we should, as we did at Starbase 12, force all ship access through a small number of entry/exit points, and strictly limit the number of Lorillians aboard ship.

I felt as if the secret of the cloak was likely to be out already…but the secret that we have an Orion onboard probably wasn't (even if it was known within the ship). Thus, our first priority should be to immediately hand Mr. Moore over. That way, if any of our crew blab in a bar about it, well, it's a Lorillian problem, not ours. My training suggested that a 12-hour lead to local authority would be about right, so that's when I notified them that we would have a captive to hand over and the nature of the captive. That should give them plenty of time to put together a high-security team to take over his custody, without giving our enemies plenty of time to find out what's happening and interfere.

We planned to run a brief battle simulation in the final hours before arrival. There ensued a discussion of how cloaks work, the major tactical implications being that one cannot fire or use shields or active sensors (and therefore no sensor lock) when cloaked.

We had a simulation: We were hailed by a ship in distress; that ship had taken weapons fire damage. We immediately scanned for cloaked enemies and managed to get a lock. I missed a shot and then they dropped their cloak, raised shields, and fired. The Romulan ship became visible when they did that, and my next shot punched through their shields. Again, I suspect actual combat with real cloaked Romulans is going to be harder than this.

We arrived at Lorillia and had a meeting with a Lorillian named Nili who wais said to have intel on the Triangle. Topi took Ch'Zathri to the meeting. "I don't envy you," Nili told them.

Adm. Kradar was the subject of an Imperial Termination Order. He was a hero in the Klingon/Romulan War...so maybe the throne felt threatened? Kradar may not be dead. There may be a Klingon civil war brewing. Sightings of him are ...well, rumors. The assassination attempt a year ago wiped out most of his adherents, and most likely (but not certainly) him. His uncle Kreetan, however, is definitely alive and in the Triangle.

Lorillia isn't a great vacation spot: Lorillian fauna are heavy methane emitters (I didn't ask the doctor to comfirm this but I think that means they fart a lot) and the planet is high-volcanism. High elevations are nice, though.

Hyralan (α Caeli) was our next destination.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7209.17 : near Lorillia : USS Odyssey

We received a distress call.

It was Capt. Johnson Davies, Cobra III, requesting assistance. We answered the call, and I informed the Captain we would be there in one hour. The Cobra III was a Tavares Class II Commercial Freighter that had suffered Warp Engine Failure. Our team (plus an extra security crewman) beamed over to assist.

The ship was (obviously) not at warp. Capt. Davies was waiting for us when we beamed aboard. David and his wife Linda were prospectors, and according to them their warp drive just crapped out. Onboard as well were his (their, I think) son Reggie and crewman Eric Davis. David was very talkative and Linda kind of aloof. Linda asks Weyer why he was going through the logs, to which he quite reasonably replied that he was trying to find early warning indications of the warp system failure. That did make me wonder if they had something to hide.

Ch'Zathri examined their drive, and it was not easily field-reparable. They would need parts from a starbase/starport. We could give them a lift back to Lorillia, which would delay us a couple extra weeks, or maybe we could put their ship under tow? We decided that if we cannot fab the parts they need onboard the Odyssey, we'd give them passage back to Lorillia so they can buy the parts they need and later they could get a ride back here with someone else.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7211.16 : near Lorillia : USS Odyssey

We gave the Davies-Johnson crew a ride back to Lorillia. Everyone but Linda was impressed with the ship. David Davies-Johnson wanted to know about our captain, and Captain Topi agreed to meet David with Cmdr. Ch'Zathri for dinner.

I asked for more surveillance than normal on their staterooms; door logs, and they would need badges to get through any door on the ship. David wanted to know what there is to do for fun, so I told him about the ship's band, and movie night, and so on.

Reggie—David and Linda's son—showed up at Larson's office. He seemed like an enthusiastic kid, and he wanted to do SCIENCE! His role on the Cobra III was handling the ore processing. Larson asked him if he knew anything about combining ore processing and botany, but he did not. Larson turned out to be very good in the role of exciting STEM mentor.

The crew's names, in full (the hyphenation rules keep tripping me up, but it looks like a child takes both of their parents' last names, and then the first of those names gets replaced if a femal marries; I'm not sure what society these folks are from where those are the rules, but fair enough):

• Captain David Davies-Johnson
• Eric Davis
• Reggie Davies-Horton
• Linda Horton-Davies

David wanted to see the engines; Ch'Zathri told him "no" because they're confidential and military and etc. He was disappointed. Then he hit me up for news about pirates, and I tell him we're pretty new in town but here were the public records I can find. His body language suggests he's just very curious about everything and not collecting intel for an enemy, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

Weyer was checking out what they're doing on the Cobra III. The Warp Engine failure is rare but not utterly implausible. He did some serious analysis of their logs. Weyer was suspicious too, but everything seemed to check out. Either our Orion enemies have upped their game considerably, or this is a new, more sophisticated, threat (Romulan?), or the Davies-Johnson crew is on the level.

Topi wanted to know where we planned source the Trellium for the shielding, since it hadn't been commercially used in a century…we have a family of miners onboard who actively want to help us out to pay us back for their rescue…Cmdr. Ch'Zathri floated the idea by David and he seemed quite pleased to have a tangible way to repay us.

It took about a month to get to SB 12. When there I tried to find out anything about Moore. I overheard a conversation between someone I'm pretty sure was a Syndicate mobster and a random civililian, and he had heard something about a Federation ship that an Orion crew attempted to infiltrate by putting a mole onboard. No one knows what happened, but the next time the mole was seen he was on Lorillia and he was dead and his remains being transferred. So it looks like the Orions bought the story.

No legitimate news sources seem to think the Federation has a cloaking device, so that hasn't leaked widely.

Ch'Zathri was curious whether there was any Kovick A'Kev activity in this sector? None whatsoever.

Then we headed out to the Cobra III, while Reggie worked out refining Trellium. By the time we got there, another month had passed, and David had eaten a LOT of replicated food and put on, like, his Freshman Forty. Reggie was sad to leave Larson, who promised he'd put in a good word if Reggie applied to the Academy. Eric Davis was all business, and Linda remained uncommunicative. They got a little Trellium mined for us.

We said our goodbyes, cruised away.

We ran another battle simulation:

There was a cargo ship in distress under attack from two Nausicaan Pirates. The pirates were in small fighters and there was a third one coupled to the hull.

We interposed the Odyssey between one and the cargo vessel and targeted the other. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri brought photon torpedos online for next turn, and I fired phasers at what I belived to be the bridge, hitting pretty hard but not penetrating the pirate shields. Then I dispatched Team Purple Helmet (Rogers, Peters, Willis, Pud, Johnson, and Wang) to the transporter room to, when we could safely drop shields and send them to the cargo ship, repel the boarders there.

Then we took a pretty heavy hit, which, well, scratched our shields.

Then I fired a photon torpedo away for heavy damage, breaching their shields but not the armor. Weyer's scan found a weak spot in the armor and shields, so that next torpedo would hurt.

Indeed it did. It more or less detonated inside their bridge. That pirate vessel was no longer a combatant.

By that point we had a lock on the other pirate. I tried to soften their shields up with phasers, but didn't really do much damage. The pirate tried to close on the cargo vessel, and we pursued. I launched a photon torpedo at their warp engines, and it got through the shields and into the armor but not through it.

They were leading us towards another pirate vesselm and we got into position to fire the phaser cannon. I was sure I was on target, but they dodge the mighty blast. Next, a regular phaser barrage was soaked by their shields. The cannon came online again, again I was sure I was on target, and again they dodged.

Well, back to the photon torpedo, which hasn't failed me yet. The pirate took a massive hit, ending the combat.

Again, I think a real ship-to-ship battle will be harder. We also need to check the tuning on the phaser array, whose damage output was lacking, and sight in the phaser cannon, since the pirates kept dodging.

We continued towards Hyralan…

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate Stardate 7212.17 : near Lorillia : USS Odyssey

During Gamma Shift, Lt Weyer had bridge dute.

Kedrick Byrne saw something on sensors. Small, not at warp, not a ship. Onscreen. It is 1m sphere, 10 lbs. Could be a lifeform. Yes! It appeared to be a silicon-based lifeform! Moving at 0.8c, and it seemed to have a brain and perhaps dog-level intelligence. It was aware we're hitting it with active scans and closed with us. It seemed curious.

It appeared to like the transmission we sent it, and then snuggled right up to the ship, without damaging either the Odyssey or itself.

Eventually, we warped away, not wanting to risk harming it.

After Gamma Shift, Topi looked at the data and told us that this looked to be a creature in Vulcan folklore, often found in the company of The Quarrel (a trickster deity of sorts). This globe creature is called Na'sing. It turns out there was an incident with a (the?) Quarrel on DS1 not two years ago; perhaps this is related?

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7301.19 : near Hyralan : USS Odyssey

Weyer got a message from Jackson Way, Command Division. Their little chess game code played out: R-KP4. B-halflevel-right. Jackson was in his uniform and gave a heads up about Bioresearch Corporation. They have not been caught doing anything illegal, but...as long as we're in the Triangle, where they're active, we should watch out: he doesn't trust them.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7302.22 : Hyralan : USS Odyssey

We arrived at Hyralan. The planetary governor greeted us and informed us that all their recreational amenities were at our disposal.

Captain Topi called the senior staff to a briefing room and told us "I have a contact on Hyralan--a Vulcan, T'lola--who wants me to meet her alone. She was concerned that one of her operatives might be a Romulan spy. She wants us to find him." I was given charge of this mission.

The agent's name is Jil: Vulcan, rather short at 5'6". I named the Usual Suspects, plus Crewman Frank, as my team. We're on shore leave and thus in civilian clothes. Larson wore this weird robe thing, but I guess I shouldn't be too snarky, since I put on shiny boots, hip-hugging bell-bottom slacks, and a red silk shirt, and really fluffed up my Afro.

Before retiring to the consultant life, Jil was a Starfleet security officer. Spotless record, highly competent; pretty much what you'd expect from a Vulcan security officer. Because he is apparently a pretty typical Vulcan, he doesn't really hang out at local watering holes or the bowling alley or whatever, so our first act was to put his apartment under surveillance. We would set bugs on each entry into the building.

Fascinatingly, just where we would have placed a bug, one had already been set up. It was a Federation-issue surveillance bug. We picked a different lamp post and set up, but now knowing what we did, we found (as expected) more bugs, in the places we would have set them. We are dealing with a professional (or professionals) at least as good as I am.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri suggested we scan Jil's apartment. We found a nearby empty rentable room to use as a base to scan his apartment for life signs. There was a faint biosign, not respirating, no heartbeat....a plant! (Larson was very excited). A dying, unwatered, local plant.

I told my teammates about the classic White Van Trick and we put that plan into action. We easily bamboozled the roof guard into allowing the HOA Botanical Group in; he even gave us a skeleton key that would let us into any apartment.

We went down to the apartment, got spotted by the surveillance, knocked twice, and let ourselves in. The plant hadn't been watered in a week, and so Larson watered it, cursing under his breath. It was the equivalent of a bonsai tree--pretty valuable. No one would have let this die voluntarily, Larson assured us.

Larson tended to the plant. The rest of us agreeded that it appeared that Jil had not been present for a week--personal effects missing, no sign of a struggle. Weyer took a look at his computer. He was conscientious about security, surprising no one. However: within the last week someone else hacked him.

Weyer was able to work some wizardry and determine that a white male human was hacking the system. With a picture and a little rank-flexing, I determined it was Solomon Brown: red hair, young guy in his early 20s. His biography was a suspiciously close match for Solomon Grundy from the nursery rhyme, so I suspect that's not his real identity. He apparently works for T'lola.

The hack was 7 days ago. 4 days ago someone else entered the apartment.

We contacted T'lola and determined that Brown was at Jil's apartment at T'lola's orders, so that was a dead end (although I suspect Brown may be our Person of Interest). We ran a check, and he didn't leave the planet through any official means.

Weyer tried decrypting the message: Jif got some communiques in a tight beam aimed towards (and presumably beyond) the Romulan Neutral Zone border. They were encoded. Weyer then decrypted the coded messages: Hyralan is acting as a numbers station. So at best we have found temporary decryption keys for coded messages. That's not nothing, but it isn't much. We were now pretty sure Jil found this transmission rather than originating it.

In the message metadata, we found a gibberish field, which seemed to be a coordinate on Hyralan. At that location, there is a nightclub: "The Elegant". It's outside of town and owned by one Amber Mae. She is young and kickass, and there is no indication that The Elegant is a disreputable establishment.

It now seemed to be time to enjoy a little shore leave, at an out-of-the-way nightclub. Weyer said he was going to feel awkward at a nightclub, but then turned down my offer of pimpin' lessons.

We didn't need to come up with any elaborate excuse for why some officers on shore leave would go out into the 'burbs to visit a nightclub. Turned out that DJ Dorothy was performing at the Elegance, and she's a big name, so there's plenty of reason right there. We got ourselves an inconspicuous rental vehicle, Cmdr. Ch'Zathri volunteered to be Designated Driver, and we set out.

We quickly noticed we were being tailed, by a government vehicle. Broni slowed for us to check it out and it did too. We were able to identify it, and it had been checked out most recently by Solomon Brown.

I smuggled my phaser and tricorder past the bouncer. So did Larsen (he needed my help). So, after some internal conflict and some readjustment of his trousers, did Ch'Zathri. So we were well armed.

We got in with no incident, and Broni greeted Amber Mae, the club owner. He ordered a "stimulating beverage", while I got a drink for me and a a beer for Crewman Frank, who was giving me sad-puppy-dog eyes. Larsen went to check out a plant, and Weyer looked very uncomfortable. For the record: my team members are such dorks. Larsen found a succulent plant, which seemed to make him happy. I guess if you want to go to a nightclub and scope out the potted plants, it's a free Galaxy.

I started dancing with Wendy: red hair, probably a decade younger than me. That's OK. It's dark, and black don't crack. I bought her a drink and we chatted; she said this was her favorite bar. I was keeping an eye out for Grundy or Jil, but also enjoying a night out on the town.

Two local cops came through the door (as did Ch'Zathri). Elsewhere in the club (I found out about this later), Weyer sat down next to the only Vulcan in the place and asked "Jil?" The guy turned towards him but didn't say anything. Maybe not the most overwhelming detective work, but, hey, whatever gets the job done. Meanwhile, Larsen had found a fern and slipped his little septafoil trademark onto it.

The police were scanning Frank, and other patrons. They carried electrolasers. They also were carrying an EMP pulse device to disrupt electrical things. That can't be standard LEO issue for local police in a suburb of a medium-size city on a slightly backwater planet. (I had not noticed the EMP yet, but I did later.)

I interposed myself, and shop-talked the cops. While I had them slightly distracted...

The Vulcan-presumed-to-be-Jil got up and went through a door, and Weyer followed him. The following conversation ensued.

"Who are you?"

"I am Jared Weyer, Starfleet Officer. You were framed for espionage."

"I seek asylum."

"Let's find a more secure location."

"Can you beam me out of here?"

"Not right now, but we can drive you out."

"I'm being followed and leaving is gonna be tough." The Vulcan did not trust Weyer very much.

Weyer texted me to bring the car around and pick him up on the roof. I kissed Wendy on the cheek and told Broni, Frank, and Larsen it was time to leave. Broni did some fancy driving and got us to the roof unobserved (we hoped) and we picked up Weyer and Jil.

As we drove, Ch'Zathri interrogated our passenger.

"Tell me your story."

"I began to become suspicious that there was some unauthorized use of the subspace comm array. When I mentioned my concerns, I was told that my chain of command would deal with it. I became suspicious that we have a Romulan spy on Hyralan and began to believe that I was being surveilled by the government."

Jil pulled out a memory card but was not willing to surrender it. Larsen asked about his houseplant.

"My Norai?"

"Yes."

"I had to part with most of my belongings."

"Is a plant truly a belonging?"

They agreed it represented more emotional attachment than a picture frame, although Jil was not quite willing to meet Larsen at "Companion."

We parked the car and beamed aboard the Odyssey; Ch"Zathri requested Captain Topi meet us all in the briefing room. I noticed that Jil's body language relaxed as soon as he saw he was in a Starfleet transporter room.

He decrypted his data, and if Jil was trying to trick us he certainly succeeded. The interception seems completely legit and captured a transmission aimed into Romulan space, and as we had ascertained from Weyer's survellaince, it seems to be a numbers station.

Jil was not willing to trust T'lola, but neither did he have direct evidence that she is part of the conspiracy. Indirect? Jil claimed she was surely aware of his findings and had done nothing (to his knowledge).

Jil confirms that Solomon Brown is loyal to T'lola.

Frank took Jil to his quarters.

At this point, I laid out my case to Captain Topi and Cmdr. Ch'Zathri: Tlola's the traitor. Brown was known to have been in the apartment, Brown trailed us, Brown (we're pretty sure) surveilled apartment. But then why did T'lola involve us?

Weyer busted open the archives and I locate what we needed, using my criminology to determine what was legit. Tlola is only 36, which is a baby by Vulcan standards. Maybe this is her first job? She comes from a small agricultural world that keeps crappy records, which seemed awfully convenient. We even have got some doctor-patient records...

...so Topi placed a subspace call to the Enterprise...based on these medical records, is this subject a Vulcan or a Romulan? Half an hour later we had an answer: "in my opinion, Romulan."

Feeling vindicated, we decided to pass our information on to other authorities and be on our way. As far as T'lola would ever know, we just didn't find any good leads on Jil.

I tried to chat up the cops, inconclusively. Jil requested that we give his last payment to Mae. I called her and woke her up, which pissed her off a little. Then I beamed down, gave her the money from Jil and 50Cr from me to buy Wendy drinks with, and beamed out again.

We expect that T'lola will now be under serious surveillance, but not from us.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7303.15 : near Hyralan : USS Odyssey

it was Alpha shift again, and we were underway. I was at Mission Ops when the ship lurched violently. Oh no! We were caught by a black star! We diverted all power to the engines as our chronometers began to act strange, and suddenly we were 24 minutes in the past!

Captain Topi pointed out the possible paradox: "If our past selves detect us...there will be two of us." I felt it would be gauche to point out "three, if you count the versions of ourselves we marooned on prehistoric Earth."

Needing no further encouragement, I pulled the knife switch on the cloaking device and the cloak energized. We were at a dead stop. Our own sensors were pretty well wiped out by the cloak too (it's dark inside there), so we were unable to see our counterparts. We waited out the 23 minutes and then dropped the cloak. All of us felt pretty sick by the time we dropped it—indeed, Lt. JG Larsen was vomiting—and apparently 23 minutes is a very long time to stay cloaked. Sick Bay was handing out anti-radiation meds and there were several people in worse shape than Larsen.

Nevertheless, the right choice. Starfleet is generally opposed to messing with the timeline. It's kind of a Slightly-Secondary Directive. We did a scan and there was only one of us, and the black star was still there.

The ship appears to have (unlike the crew) had no egregiously bad effects from the radiation. We proceeded towards Starbase 23, and ran a battle simulation on the way.

SIMULATION: ORION PIRATE VESSEL

Single Orion pirate ship—very fast, very nimble, not super-tough. We acquired a lock and I missed with phasers. They tried to get their lock back. I missed again, and they got not only through the shields, but through our armor as well with their particle beams. We took minimal actual damage, but this was a discouraging start. Neither our piloting nor our sensors were going very well. I racked up yet another miss, and then finally I managed a hit, but not a very strong one. Fortunately, their shields and armor were also not strong, and I rather luckily hit their impulse drive. I followed up with another hit, with weak (but sufficient to penetrate their defenses) effect. We need to tune the phaser arrays. They put a shot on target, which we managed to dodge, and the photon torpedo came online. Some lousy navigating led to a bad approach path, and I just barely missed with the torpedo. The Orions were unable to get a lock, and Weyer's work had finally paid off and their ECM was entirely down, making them much easier to hit. The next hit was major, and crippled their ship: sparks exploding out everywhere, warm nacelles stopped glowing, et cetera. Orions don't like to be taken alive, and in fact they came about and attempted to ram. At this point, though, I had another torpedo in the tube, and they had no ECM and no effective defenses. The torpedo detonated their ship.

Lesson learned: wearing down the enemy's ECM is hugely useful, because targeting becomes much much easier once ECM is down.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7304.06 : Starbase 23 : USS Odyssey

Captain Topi called a briefing as we approached Starbase 23. We planned to stay about 24 hours; just enough for a little R&R for everyone. We reviewed how many people aboard know about the cloaking device…about a dozen, give or take, as it turns out.

We arrived at Starbase 23 on 2304.06.

We got some news from Hyralan: T'lola had not been taken into custody—seems like the brass wants to follow that lead and find bigger fish. Ah well, it's not my problem.

I decided to go carousing with Cmdr. Ch'Zathri in tow. Starbase 23 was pretty big and had a substantial civilian population. I followed my spidey-sense and came upon a table with two Orions. I approached and their body language was wary; then I greeted them in Orion and asked to practice my language skills. One was an older man, the other much younger. They invited me over, I bought us all a round, and that broke the ice. One of them asked about Andoria and I talked about the ice climbing then about working in Security for five years on the Farragut. We swapped our war stories. Then the Orions said "We gotta get going, but there's an Orion on the station, Vomric, who claims he has some alien artifact he's trying to fence, and he's having a hard time finding a buyer. It was some kinda tech, but nothing I've ever seen before. Metal alloy, intricate. No idea of its function. May not be on the up-and-up."

This seemed like too much fun to pass up. We put together an undercover operation, posing as collectors. I was the heavy, Larsen acted as our face. Broni played the the right-hand-guy, and Weyer was our technology guy. In different archaic terms: tank, face, fixer, tech, or fighter, bard, thief, and wizard.

This disguise worked fine.

We didn't have difficulty finding a dimly-lit bazaar down on the lower decks. There was an Orion sitting at a table with a woman, Asian with red hair, apparently human. They also seemed to be people-watching, getting an idea of who was buying and selling what.

Larsen went over to the Orion. I stood behind him, scanning the crowd, acting the part of Vigilant Bodyguard.

"Greetings, friends. I understand that you have something from the ancients."

"Oh, you've heard of my acquisition."

"It might tell the mysteries of the history of the sector, through plant life! I've been searching for clues of the Seven Gardens and Universal Consciousness and I believe there's something here to be found in the Triangle."

I...don't think Larsen was just bullshitting there. I think he actually believes in the Seven Gardens and the Universal Consciousness. No wonder he's so interested in plants.

The Orion brought out something wrapped in cloth. Shiny metal alloy, vaguely football-shaped, not smooth, clearly technological.

It didn't seem to be biotech. Weyer whipped out a homebrew bicorder and started scanning it. The Orion and the human woman had been a little leery when Larsen was doing his spiritual-quest thing, but then they leaned in when Weyer started scanning, and the woman relaxed a bit.

Whatever it was, it was pretty impressive. Weyer did his little mystical communing-with-machines (why am I suddenly surrounded by cultists?) It was somehow used to channel subatomic particles and Weyer was certain it was a piece of a larger device that was used for travel—not like warp travel, but like gate/portal travel, kind of like the thing that took us back to prehistoric earth. It's at least one tech jump above anything the Federation could make: this is Progenitor-level advanced tech.

Weyer pointed out that it was just a little piece of a bigger whole and there might be plenty of these items out there.

Vomric chucked. "I'll tell you why you're not gonna find more pieces: I found this in Romulan space."

"Where in Romulan space?" asked Larsen.

"I can't tell you precisely but not far beyond the Neutral Zone."

"Oh, so you found it on Devoras."

That certainly got his attention.

"Not quite that far in but in that direction, yes."

"It is where the Universal Consciousness has been directing me. I believe one of the Gardens is there. What's your price?"

"Credits, deuterium, tritium."

"Do you have a number?"

"I think...one million credits."

"I will need to confer with my investors. I take it you will be present here."

I interjected and asked them about requried quantites of deuterium and tritium. They want 80 liters of deuterium, or 8 liters of tritium.

Larsen handed them one of his trademark septafoils and said, "May the blessings of the Universal Consciousness be upon you."

We're gonna take the news back to Topi, who is our "investor" (I mean, who else can authorize that kind of expenditure, or the release of that much deuterium or tritium?). Weyer feels like this object could actually be quite useful for shielding the cloaking device.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7304.23 : Phylosian starship SSP Evolution between Starbases 23 and 157 : USS Odyssey

It was Stardate 7304.22 and we had made it nearly to Starbase 157. It was Gamma Shift and Weyer was missing. He had, we gathered from his comms, finally dug into the burritos he'd been hoarding from a Starbase 23 taco truck, and that had been a terrible mistake.

The bridge crew that shift was Kedrick Byrne at Helm, Kristen Jaenke at Tactical, and Naarg at Engineering. Larsen, of all people, was in the Captain's Chair. Lt. Jaenke informed him, "Lieutenant, incoming distress call."

There was a strange pineapple-looking person on the viewscreen. Larsen immediately identified him as a Phylosian, which is to say, a plant-based sentient life form. Captain Phays of the SSP Evolution reported they had suffered engine failure and were requesting assistance from anyone who could respond. Byrne pointed out "they're not too far out of our way, sir."

Larsen, correctly determining that the situation warranted it, then alerted the actual senior staff, Cmdr. Ch'Zathri first. He arrived on the bridge and Larsen surrendered the chair. The Odyssey received a new distress call from the Evolution: "Odyssey, be advised, we believe there's a cloaked ship in the area ". Larsen alerted me and I rushed to the bridge and took Tactical, sending Jaenke to Master Situation. Lt. Jaenke, commendably but personally disappointingly, had already pulled the Big Red Lever before I got to the bridge.

The Phylosian ship looked like a giant carrot, leaking drive plasma.

We scanned the carrot as sneakily as we could, without Weyer's deft touch on the sensors. We saw that there was a humanoid and two plants on one of the decks; the humanoid was unfamiliar and not in our databases. It seemed to have high-tech batteries consistent with phaser power supplies, and the three were tussling.

Broni woke Topi and requested her on the bridge, as we prepared to beam over. We found two Phylosians wrestling with a blue alien. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri shouted: "Identify yourself, blue guy, and cease your tussling."

"Who are YOU? I do not recognize your authority," replied the blue guy.

"At the moment," Ch'Zathri replied, "you are committing an act of piracy, and this is the only authority I need. Identify yourself."

The blue alien made a sudden movement towards his chest and tapped himself. He then began to dematerialize. Ch'Zathri hailed the Odyssey and requested that they trace the signal. Captain Topi asked for quarter-power phasers on the trace origin coordinates. "The ship is powering engines. Onboard the Phylosian ship, are there obvious injuries?" There were not; the Phylosians said they were uninjured, and had caught the guy sneaking around.

The Odyssey departed in pursuit of the pirate vessel.

We talked to the Phylosians; Larsen and I checked out the ship, while Ch'Zathri headed down to Engineering: "Let's get that reactor working!" The reactor didn't sound right, and there was someone actively monkeying around with stuff. We saw no one elsewhere on the ship, and Ch'Zathri notified me and Larsen there was an intruder, so we rushed down to engineering. Ch'Zathri was trying to open a door, but neither he nor I could get it to open.

We called Captain Phays, deciding that a plasma grenade might be a bit much, and explained that the intruder might be on the other side. They swiftly opened the doors, and we rushed in to find… another Phylosian there, screwing with the knobs. He said he was trying to repair the engines. As far as we could determine, damage seemed to be interior to the ship, which was weird since the drive system was compromised without going through the hull. That pattern would be consistent with sabotage. I did not see anyone else unusual in this room.

We determined that the plasma injectors had been damaged. But how and by what at whom? We inspected closely: obvious trauma, as if someone transported part of the injectors away. It's not as clean a cut as what a transporter would have been, but something like that.

The damaged drive consisted of impressive impulse engines, but basically just regular tech. So…what were the Phylosians carrying?

Raerf the engineer stated they did have some valuable cargo.

I set off to talk to the captain about their cargo and whether it would make them a target for piracy, leaving Raerf in charge of repairs. He seemed competent enough, he just never considered that parts of components randomly missing from one location in the plasma injectors could be the problem. Fair enough, I guess: that's not a failure mode anyone is going to teach you about. But once the problem was understood, he agreed it would be easy to fix.

We, by now, were pretty sure there was no one else onboard. I ascended to the top deck and asked Phays if they were carrying something the Blue Dudes might want, and whether they knew who the Blue Dudes are?

"Our cargo is almost certainly what he was after," I was informed. They are headed back to Phylos in a non-warp-capable ship. We expressed concern for their safety and were told that the Evolution, and Phylosian ships generally, have some defenses but they are a peaceful people. He did not seem particularly concerned at the possibility of a further encounter, especially after we received a call from Captain Topi.

She informed us that the Odyssey had the miscreant in the brig and his ship in the shuttle bay. We bid the Phylosians goodbye, and I rather naughtily told them I was sure Larsen would be happy to fertilize them. They did not respond that I could tell. Let's hope that was just written off as a translator glitch.

The miscreant's ship was small: a one-man vessel. Ch'Zathri went to look at it and its cloaking device.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went to the brig to talk to him. He wanted a meal, spicy and plant-based. Ch'Zathri joined us while he was eating.

The interrogation proceeded as follows. As you can see, he was not very forthcoming.

US: "Who are you?"
TOLAN: "I'm nobody. I'm Tolan, a simple trader."
US: "Why were you on the Phylosian ship tussling with them?"
TOLAN: "I was invited onboard."
US: "Why did you damage their impulse engines?"
TOLAN: "I did not."
US: "Do you know how their impulse engines came to be damaged?"
TOLAN: "Nope, I responded to a distress signal."
US: "Why were you grappling?"
TOLAN: no reply

Ch'Zathri ordered a full search of his ship.
TOLAN (spluttering): "That won't be necessary!"
Ch'Zathri offered him some wine, a nice dry red.
US: "What was the cargo those guys were being so cagey about?"
TOLAN: "Who knows?"
US: "Where were you headed?"
TOLAN: "Into Federation space."

By now we had ascertained that neither Tolan Gratlan nor his ship were in any database.

US: "What species are you? What planet are you from?"

He said he was Raxiline. I'd been watching his body language, and even though I'm not familiar with Raxilines specifically, I was quite sure he was lying about a lot of stuff. When Broni talked about getting into his ship he was actually nervous. He likes his anonymity and that's his leverage.

"Cloaking technology is not illegal!" he insisted. He's right, but it sure is suspicious. I excused myself and talked to Ch'Zathri, who in turn went to talk to Topi.

We checked his story with the Phylosians. He appeared after the distress signal but did not inform them he would be assisting. The Phylosians stated that they would be OK with not pressing charges and releasing him. Raxiline is not Federation space, but is in Romulan space. Raxilines are occasionally encountered as crew on Romulan pirate ships.

The design of his ship was novel. The cloak was not part of the original design but appeared to have been professionally installed, so aftermarket, but not hastily-bodged on. Could the Romulans be actually selling their previous-gen cloaks to Orions and friendly client races? That's an alarming possibility.

Topi suggested that we offer to let him go if we kept the cloak.

Broni and I tried a classic good-cop bad-cop play. Tolan was surprisingly willing to play ball: "The cloak is expensive…how about some compensation? Deuterium? Protein resequencer?"

He actually agreed in return for some deuterium, some antimatter, and a few cases of wine.

We distracted him while we got the cloaking device off the ship, by feeding him ribs and corn on the cob and Carolina spicy sauce, which he appeared to enjoy immensely. My read on him was that he was not especially dangerous: he's happy to operate outside the law. His nonviolence seems not to be a principled stance but a behavior he can point to in order to ensure leniency when caught, but at heart pretty much amoral. He could be a sociopath or a psychopath or a racist, but there's no direct evidence of that. While he didn't want harm for the Phylosians, he wouldn't have cared if they did get harmed.

At any rate, less paperwork for us, and a second cloaking device, although this one, obviously, for a much smaller vessel.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7305.12 : Starbase 157 : USS Odyssey

We had just apprehended two Klingons trying to escape in a Vulcan Warp Sled. We were in the brig taunting them about having been brought down by the botanist.

Topi was considering taking Upik and Odrothe (the Klingon captives) with us. I did not think this was a great idea. That's 1/3 of our security cells right there, and it's not like The Odyssey is a Class 1 prison facility or anything. Sure, we've proven that a botanist can take them out. But still.

Topi disagreed with us, but we eventually prevailed.

Carraya was our next stop.

We heard that T'lola was charged with being a Romulan spy and taken into custody.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7306.16 : Carraya : USS Odyssey

In orbit around Carraya, we scanned megafauna (yay!) and a crashed ship on the surface. Not obvious whose design, but it had a warp nacelle and appeared to be undamaged. We decided to beam down to see it.

Larsen reported that the flora near the craft did not match the rest of the planet. Indeed, the species were certainly invasive exotics. Now there are some high-tech materials outside the ship. Maybe the crew got off? But we scanned no sentient life forms. We detected fain, odd movement, similar to a Phylosian plant. The "fauna" were some sort of bio/tech combo, probably engineered, like someone deliberately opened up a biolab. Could we have stumbled across a terraforming in progress? Sentient plants? Very strange.

I took both a phaser rifle and my Phaser II, and we beamed down. It was a weird ship design we didn't immediately recognize. The plants were definitely not sessile, which in itself was creepy, at least to me (Larsen seemed giddy with excitement). There was something behind us, a man-sized plant-thing on all fours coming towards us. It was a Biomechanical Horror and Larsen really didn't like it. He said it was an abomination that must be destroyed.

I took aim.

All kinds of growth had grown into the airlock. It would be very hard to shut.

The thing coming towards us was, I thought moving much more slowly than it could. It ... seemed to be talking? We did not think it intended to harm us. Perhaps we could negotiate. There were five of them, four quadrupeds and one biped. They all were covered with spines and tendrils, which were glistening with some sort of, well, we prudently assumed it was poison, and they were pointed towards us.

The createures were speaking Orion! They were saying "no harm!" I put my gun away and said (in Orion) "I believe we can understand each other. No harm. Who are you and how did you come to be here?"

They continued advancing and Commander Ch'Zathri backed off. We told them to stop advancing and not touch us until we figure out what's going on and if they did stop moving in on us, we would try to help them.

They did not stop. The least-bestial of them (the biped) said "absorb." Well, that didn't sound good. One stepped towards me. I apologized and told them I would try not to kill them, and fired on heavy stun. The creature was not stunned, but was slightly burned. Larsen did stun one. I shot again and it shrugged off the stun, Weyer hit another, and *it* resisted the stun. These things were tough!

One tried to spear Weyer, but he dodged and retreated. The two quadrupeds went to the one that was down and started touching it with their tentacles. We scored some more hits, but no more collapsed. I decided to go to widebeam to see if I could take out the cluster of three.

Another dropped. Weyer dug around in his rucksack and came up with an anti-nanite ray gun. Larsen switched his phaser over to disintegrate; even I was willing to admit by this point that these were not innocents, even by my own rather strict definitions. The female biped went into the ship. One remaining quadruped stood at the airlock looking out. I missed my shot and it went in.

Nothing was immediately attacking us, so I just drew a bead on the airlock and waited while Larsen checked out the one we immobilized and we took some scans of the interior of the ship.

This creature used to be an Orion male. It had been...I guess "rewritten" is the best word. Extremely creepy. This kind of editing is not a Phylosian normal MO. Nor was it anything we'd heard of Romulans or Klingons doing. The "brain" of the creature might not be a brain anymore. Were they sentient? Hard to say. Everyone else thought not, but they were *talking*.

The ship, even up close, did not look damaged, just powered down.

I was not a fan of going in there without hazmat suits. However, as Larsen examined the captured one further, he determined that it had vestigial organs that used to be lungs. They probably did not need to breathe and could perhaps take off with the airlock open. Larsen, however, was of the opinion that the creature was only alive because of its cybernetic components. Since the ship had a warp nacelle, they could cause a lot of mischief. It seemed fair to, at least, impose quarantine on these former Orions. The ship only has two decks; it couldn't hold a great many more enemies than what we'd already seen.

Thus, we decided that we needed to try to disable the ship, and if it did manage to lift off, the Odyssey needed to disable it. That required a call to Captain Topi.

We headed in, and immediately spotted two ahead in the darkness: the biped and a quadruped. The biped was aiming a hand weapon at us. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri had abandoned stun settings, and put five shots on target (while I missed with Heavy Stun). The dog charged. I stepped back and shot, and hit it; it was unaffected by the stun.

Broni fired at it. Five hits again, and it was wounded but not down. These creatures are really alarmingly tough. It went for me, I dodged and retreated, shot it again, and it was still not down. Broni took a shot. It did not dodge, and was still fighting, albeit in bad shape.

The female biped shot at me; I dodged and retreated and the shot bored pretty deep into the bulkhead. Whatever she was armed with, it was powerful. The quadruped went for Broni and impaled him with a tentacle. Ch'Zathri fell! The stab was blocked by his armor and did not get through.

Weyer stepped into the airlock and fired his anti-nanite ray gun at the quadruped on Ch'Zathri. It was still fighting, and stabbed Ch'Zathri again; again his monocrys protected him. I shot it again and finally it fell over, its tentacles limp. Weyer shot the biped, which was badly wounded but still up.

I moved up, took a shot at the biped, and missed.

Broni, still on the ground, fired a ten-round burst, but only two shots hit their target. She seems to be in very bad shape. She came at me and struck, but my armor kept the tentacle from puncturing *me*, and finally she went down. I started hogtying her, and took her weapon away.

More enemies were coming in. I shot one and it went down immediately.

Another was on Weyer. I shot it too, but it was not stunned.

Ch'Zathri stepped in and karate kicked it *really hard*, and Weyer shot it again with his ray gun. It was still up but looking gnarly. And then Larsen blasted it with three shots of Disrupt C and it was mortally wounded.

I hogtied all of them. One of them was dead by the time I got to it.

Larsen checked our uniforms for spores-or-nanites-or-whatever. Yeah, we're contaminated. Weyer's ray gun will burn us a bit but zap the nanites. That seemed like a fair trade. I was not hurt, but Ch'Zathri was slightly burned.

We realized should probably sterilize the contaminated 4-sq-mile site with a ship-scale Weyerizer. Ch'Zathri suggested just overloading the reactor. Rogue nanites, no (I sure hope) sentients dead…sure, that seems reasonable. I'm willing to concede that the former-Orions can't be saved. We will not bring any of these creatures on board, but we will bring (carefully collected) samples.

Weyer is trying to find out what happened here, and thought the computer core...wasn't the core anymore. The ship's systems had also been infected by the whatever-this-was distributing thought ("thought?") among disparate cybernetic components.

Time to blow this thing. The ship's power systems were intact, and had just gone into safe mode, so should be easy to override. I fulfilled my dream of REDACTED TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED pissing on the warp core END REDACTION. We waited for T-10 and beamed out. EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM!

From the ship's data Weyer recovered:

There were five crewmen: Takuh was the commander, Naallum the scientist, Tassad the engineer, Dassal the heavy. And an Orion Slave Girl Tani. Someone called R'Zaad (also Orion) was who they were trying to impress. They were insinuating in messages to R'Zaad that they might have some nanites they were weaponizing. The last log was from Dassal: concerned about the crew, he planned to land. They got the nanites from someplace in Romulan space. Not purchased. Found ("Found"?). (Could this be Larsen's Garden of Eden?)

The turning-people-into-cybernetic-plants thing is probably on Naalum. Some of the log was encrypted. Weyer tried to break the encryption but could not.

Topi was impressed. However, she ordered the nanotech destroyed as soon as we analyzed it. Weyer protested. Tough luck, Weyer.

Our next port of call is Federation Outpost 12, and we are about a month out.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7307.22 : Federation Outpost Epsilon 12 : USS Odyssey

The Warp Sled we acquired from our visit to Starbase 157 had been made operational and was parked in Odyssey's hangar bay. We arrived at Outpost Epsilon 12 without incident.

An older Andorian on the viewscreen greeted us quite enthusiastically. "We're very much looking forward to your visit!" "Why is that?" asked Cmdr. Ch'Zatri. "We don't get many visitors here." I surmized that they were really stir-crazy here. The outpost can only handle about 20 visitors at a time. Our crew didn't seem nearly so excited as the outpost denizens, and for good reason: it's a no-atmosphere planetoid, where shore leave would be kind of like vacationing in a subway station.

Topi asked for the senior staff to go down and make nice. We went down to the outpost, and the senior Andorian (Shrelav th'Chani) was excited to see us, and introduced his Yeoman, Lewis. We ended up at the ops station.

The outpost was not a large structure (max. capacity 40). Larsen talked to a woman named Jessie, one of their scientists. They do have a lab, and its purpose was mostly geology. Larsen asked whether there was gardening. They did seem like they could use a little herb garden. There was some miscommunication before Larsen got across that he was asking about Morning Garden Planet, in Baker's Dozen. She didn't know a lot about it: Jessie had, however, heard that it was populated by pacificsts, half Vulcan, with lots of fishing and agriculture. The outpost had plenty of power to run a greenouse, because it has its own matter/antimatter reactor so it can function as a listening outpost.

Weyer went with Vicky, who was in her early 50s and Hispanic. She gave Weyer the full tour, including the protein resequencer, the docking bay, the cargo transporter, and power production. The interesting thing was that the sensor array was actually pretty state-of-the-art.

"We don't hear anything. I've been here five years, and never heard or seen a peep in the Romulan Neutral Zone." Vicky believed that given cloaking, unless the Romulans were actually in-system, the outpost would never see them. The Federation has seen Romulans using Klingon chassis, and there are reports of Klingons with cloaking devices. Since it's both ways, that indicates a possible alliance. The outpost, she said, was mostly a canary in the Neutral Zone Coal Mine. If it goes silent the Federation will know something is wrong.

Vicky said she was going to retire soon and probably won't go back to Earth.

I met with Farr. He was their Tellarite Chief of Security. He showed me the gym and barracks. Mostly the station crew is human, with a few Vulcan. About 1/3 female. 20 person crew, 5 officers, officers, 15 enlisted. The outpost is pretty much a punishment assignment, and draws those with troubled Starfleet pasts, so Farr decided to try to channel their proclivities in a non-destructive fashion. He talked with pride about his Robot Rodeo involving 4-person aircars and target practice robots. We were invited to join, so I called the rest of our team and made arrangements.

Cmdr. Ch'zathri was quite impressed with Farr's ingenuity.

The rodeo began: we zoomed in to a robot and I jumped onto it, screaming "Yee-Haw!". Then it shot me and knocked me back quite a bit. I fell prone two yards away. I got to my feet as Weyer leapt out and missed the robot. It shot him next and sent him flying three yards. I charged it and missed badly, and it knocked me into the aircar, bruising my ribs. I failed to grapple it and we heard on our radio that another team had gotten their robot. Throwing caution to the winds, I charged it and grabbed hold, flattening it. Weyer yanked the battery. We tossed it in the car, and raced back. The finish was very close, but we crossed the line a fraction of a second before the other successful team.

We were invited to a party featuring some real Romulan Ale as a celebration of our visit and successful robot wrangling! Yeoman Lewis did not partake, nor did Shrelav. Broni had a couple bottles of his personal stash of Andorian brandy beamed over, to Shrelav's delight. Topi also came down.

I spent some time drinking and socializing and found out that this is no one's first post. As Farr had said, this is where the misfits are sent for their second tour (six months or so). These are…not dishonorable-discharge level violations, but pranks gone horribly wrong, habitual tardiness, that kind of thing. I made sure Farr had my contact information and recruited him as a source of information. He'd only had the rodeo up and running within the last year.

Then my eye fell on a tall and statuesque human woman, white, with a beauty mark. I chatted her up. She was Dina Wolfe, black hair, hazel eyes, working in operations. I therefore decided to, ahem, pump her for information.

Meanwhile, Ch'Zathri found out that Lewis hated Romulans, and that Shrelav is too old to captain but felt like he was doing good here. He warned us that the Triangle will be interesting.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri tried to hand off command to be, but I was…otherwise engaged, so he gave it to Weyer.

We contemplated our next destination.

Cyclopus? It has a Government modeled loosely on the Roman Empire and seems to be enticingly decadent. Pluuh II, on the other hand, is a swamp world discovered by Tellarites; yuck. Cyclopus it is, for our last Federation-space port of call.

Then we'll head into the Triangle. Our first stop will be Gibraltar: an ice rock at the corner of the Triangle, and then on to Newlin III: sulfur, metal, radioisotopes, and therefore, as one would expect, mining colonies.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7308.01 : Cyclopus : USS Odyssey

We made planetfall at Cyclopus and hailed them on comms. We were greeted by a regal woman in her 70s with dark skin and dark hair. "I am Empress Meia d'Ricetta. Welcome to Cyclopus." Cmdr. Ch'Zathri greeted her and she told us that we were expected, so we beamed down to meet her.

Cyclopus has a surface gravity of 1.5G, which was unpleasant. The place had thoroguhly modern infrastructure, but very definitely Roman styling. Notably, they did not permit slavery, although they (obviously) still did most of their trading with worlds in the Triange, and D'Ricetta reminded us that the Triangle Worlds have stayed non-Federation for a reason.

Weyer wanted a traditional Roman bath, and naturally there were Coliseum fights too.

An aide came in and told the Empress "There's been a complaint about the wolf again." "I would suggest that we make it a public matter," she replied. I raised an eyebrow. "There's an indigenous predator..." I sighed and confessed that I had hoped it was some fearsome criminal's soubriquet; hunting animals was far less interesting to me than bringing miscreants to justice.

An Andorian showed up, one Rith ch'Othonit, and wanted to know if ch'Zathri was skilled in Ushaan fighting and if he would put on a sparring exhibition with ch'Othonit. Cmdr. ch'Zathri demurred. ch'Zathri then relieved Weyer and me, so we could set out and begin our R&R.

Meanwhile, an old Black man talked to Larsen. The primary export of Cyclopus is food and in particular a tall grass-wheat hybrid that thrives in the cold, high-G, climate. Larsen was suspicious of it: could it be a Romulan plot? Unlikely.

The Empress, when pressed on the details of her government, explained that Cyclopus was basically the Roman Republic rather than the Empire. Her power is largely ceremonial, and functionally it was rather like early-21st century England, not that that's much more familiar to most of our shipmates. Her predecessor was Emperor David, and was...not as charismatic. She said he had "retired to a villa" which might or might not have been a euphemism. Probably not; there really doesn't seem to be much vile underbelly to this place.

Weyer and I arrived at the bathhouse, accompanied by Captain Topi. This was not a San Francisco style bathhouse, but, really, a place one went for hygiene and exercise; a public pool and spa, more or less. Topi, when the two of us were alone, said to me that we would be (per the Empress's request) provided a special passenger. The Cyclopeans had discovered a Romulan spy (using the information of how the spy on Starbase 234 was able to communicate into Romulan space) and we were to take her to Gibraltar for a prisoner exchange; the planet is split down the middle, Romulan and Human, and is often used for this sort of delicate matter. In Twentieth-Century Earth terms, basically Checkpoint Charlie.

The prisoner's name (or, at least, assumed Vulcan name) was Nith.

The Empress is very clear that Romulans are not allowed on this world…but could the Cyclopeans reliably tell them from Vulcans?

The wolves are…well, pretty much albino wolves. Big, angry apex predators, 200 kilos or so.

The Coliseum turned out to be…well…sport-killing of animals (the meat was at least not wasted). Human-on-human violence (although the main draw) was not to the death and although dangerous was said to be consensual. I was a little skeptical, but in fact it did turn out that the fighters were volunteers, not criminals. Although Cyclopus does have a protocol for taking-nasty-jobs-to-reduce-your-prison-sentence, arena fighting was not one of them. The gladiators are treated like rockstars. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more vice and nastiness from a pseudo-Roman planet; this place was almost disgustingly wholesome.

d'Ricetta, shortly after our departure, contacted the Odyssey. "We could use your help in a safety issue. Here are the coordinates of a small villa that will take us time to reach. There's a report that one of the Big Wolves (Lupus Magnus) is in the residence."

We were swiftly ready to beam down to Katherine Robinson's residence. We started with Stun 3 on Phaser Rifle ("Maximum stun"), and Stun 2 ("Heavy stun") on Phaser II. I and Cmdr. Ch'Zathri took both a rifle and a Phaser II, and our compatriots contented themselves with pistols only.

We transported down and Katherine (who was quite attractive) pointed to the monitor. There was indeed a Big Bad Wolf inside, and she opened the interior doors so we would have access to it, and a shot at it.

I aimed at the wolf and shot it on Maximum Stun. It was even angrier, but by no means unconscious. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri also shot it with a rifle, and his shot took it down. I ziptied its mouth shut and its legs together, and left it for the planetary authorities to dispose of when they arrived.

Then we took Nith aboard and got underway for Gibraltar.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7309.04 : Gibraltar – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

The Romulan spy's Vulcan cover ID was Nith. The Romulans don't think much of Starbase 234.

I asked her what the whole numbers station thing is about. It's what we thought—canary, and also she was sending coded messages to Romulus. She considered Romulans superior to Klingons and Federation, of course, but I could not tell which she considered a bigger threat. She did not seem to know if there have been similar prisoner exchanges before.

Weyer made himself busy doing research on BioResearch Corporation.

The senior staff beamed down to discuss the situation (notably the prisoner exchange). We met Cmdr. Ril Ch'ezelol, an Andorian. His aide was a woman, human, tall (6') named Mona Moore, in her early 20s and attractive, sporting black hair in a big beehive.

Then we met Lt. Paula Rice, Starfleet, probably a Counsellor (wearing blue). "We know very little about the Romulans; our initial encounter was a war. They are secretive, they use cloaking technologies, they're racially paranoid. We were happy they wanted this embassy, but they haven't tried to further relations."

I admit to them that I didn't get much out of Nith.

The ambassador said he was unaware of any Federation citizens held by Romulans. But a not-Romulan among Romulans is obviously a spy, so...

We went to the Bridge Of Spies for the exchange. Haros, Centurion, comes out to greet us. Our prisoner is one Spunul. Federation citizen. There's a new cylinder hovering to the north. Unrecognizable tech; could be Romulan.

"What is this, Federation?" "I do not know. I thought it was yours." It was scanning us. We opened a channel to the Odyssey and they had a red alert going on. There was an alien visitor in system not responding to hails. The Romulans had taken up an aggressive posture.

Cmdr. Ch'zathri suggested to our Romulan opposite number that we should put aside our differences and deal with this thing. They agreed. The thing at the drone's top seemed to be a weapons platform.

Ch'zathri went up to it, hands open, and said "we mean you no harm" and the usual things one does to deescalate a situation.

It continued to approach and I drew a bead on it. Its weapons started heating up. I shot and it dodged. It shot at Weyer and he dropped to avoid injury. Eventually I got another shot at it and hit. The robot disappeared. Was it cloaked? Weyer did not see any evidence (like the usual cloaking weird particle signatures) that it was. Nor did it seem to have been beamed out. Where did it go? HOW did it go?

The Romulans fired on the ship, which seemed to absorb their disruptor, and then vanished.

We found out that two miners were killed; there were many similar robots that appeared. The disappearance was like a transporter, but there's no beam-through-space. This seemed to … not do that, but rather be actual teleportation.

Spunul appeared to be Vulcan. He was a mess. They had him hooked up to a machine that accessed his brain through his eye, but Manheim thought he might be able to save his eye. He was spying on the Romulans, or at least he admitted he was (I was, and am, am still suspicious that he may be a Romulan masquerading as a Vulcan). He says he was paid by BioResearch, and is their employee. He claimed to have intel that he will share with the Federation. The Romulans do not, he said, want peace. He claimed to know nothing about the drone, and further claimed that the Federation owes BioResearch a debt for his work.

We found no organic residue whatsover on any scans. Are the robots the sentience? No, probably not, but it definitely seemed like they had been scrubbed down to remove any trace of their masters.

We agreed to take Spunul to Comstock.

….

Next, we'll proceeded to Newlin III. It is a sulfurous but-cool planet, with a nominal queen (6 years old!) but basically (unsurprisingly) a regency. All ships are ordered to stop at Security Base I.

Schneiter, 18 lightyears passed Newlin III, on the way to Comstock, is a cold world, and a mining colony; it has no local government; decisions are made by corporate headquarters on Comstock.

Comstock, it turns out, has a monorail! I'm not sure why I found that so exciting. Maybe because there's a monorail song? It also has a polar sea, where the big city is. There is an abundance of black market in the city, and outside the city is privateer territory. The world is an Orion favorite hangout. So … it's basically a pirate planet. Well, this should be entertaining. Nothing involving pirates and monorails could possibly end badly.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7310.23 : Newlin III – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

7309.17 En route from Gibraltar to Newlin III: Weyer found out that "Joe Moore" (left on Aurelia) didn't talk much, but did claim that his team heard the Odyssey was in possesion of secret tech.

7310.02 Arrival at Newlin III: Newlin III was ruled by the 6-year-old queen Bethlin IV, a Tellarite, although in actuality ruled by her regent, Prime Minister Verg glov Jallirs (also Tellarite). The Queen's Tellarite name is Bethlin jav Frarn. As directed, we planned to make landfall at Security Base One (on the fourth planet).

At Security Base One, we were asked "What is your business here?" "We're on a diplomatic mission en route to Comstock." There was a sort-of-tense exchange between Cmdr. Ch'Zathri and the PM, but they allowed us to land.

The Queen (not even three feet tall yet) greeted us. Ch'Zathri greeted Prime Minister Jallirs brusquely. I nodded. "Children!" Bethlin says "What's wrong with that?" I took a chance on the Tellarite reputation for enjoying a good insult, and replied to Jallirs "I guess your wife likes them young, then." "Hmph! Let's eat." There's diplomacy for you!

We were told "We're a mining planet, the atmosphere is very hard on equipment, and we haven't been getting our shipments."

We agreed to investigate. They said they hadn't seen any pirates.

…

We compiled a dossier from several sources, official, word on the street, word in Tellarite dive bars, et cetera. Indeed, a lot of expected traders had not checked in. There really did seem to be something going on. We thought, based on the route, we had a reasonable guess that the Pirates were coming from somewhere between Newlin III and Meadow or Gamon. We agreed to operate on the authority of Queen Bethlin of Newlin III, should we encounter pirates. We expected it would us about 3 weeks to the pirate center of activity.

7310.22 near Newlin III (and Schneiter, Meadow, Gamon) space: We reached that center of activity. We quickly found some debris. With a mighty ker-CHUNK, I engaged the cloaking device, and we investigated. The debris was definitely a destroyed ship. We beamed some wreckage aboard and found bodies. Mostly human, some other species (Vulcans, Tellarites, etc). This was the wreckage of the Free Trader Ural, three decks, a common design.

Some of the wreckage had obviously been damaged by weapons fire, probably disruptors. Klingons, Romulans, and Orions use disruptors; it's not a common Federation weapons. It would be unusual for Orions to blow a ship to smithereens and kill all the crew; they typically do piracy for economic motives, and people who are dead can't be further extorted. Therefore, our culprits were probably not Orion. Klingon or Romulan, then, and we were definitely closer to Klingon space (specifically, the Imperial Klingon State (IKS)—five Klingon occupied worlds within The Triangle) than Romulan space. That made the two worlds of Meadow or Gamon our best next bets. The balance of probability seemed to point to Gamon, but we decided to stop in at Meadow first.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7310.23 : near Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri was in the Captain's chair, and Lt. Weyer at comms, during Beta shift, when we received a distress signal: "This is the Free Trader Galatea! We are under attack by ❬cuts out❭."

Fortunately, Weyer is, as is well known, a wizard at all things technical, and we were able to get a direction and had strong suspicion that the signal had ceased due to jamming.

Captain Topi arrived on the bridge and we went to Yellow Alert.

We arrived at the signal source and encountered a Free Trader (three decks) being fired upon by three Klingon ships. Topi called out "Red Alert! Battle Stations!" and I went over to man Tactical. The Free Trader was bravely attempting to return fire, but bravery doesn't win battles against massively superior firepower.

Cmdr. Broni tried to maneuver the Odyssey between the Klingon leader and the Free Trader. We attempted to get a lock on the largest ship. "Klingons only know one thing," opined the Captain (cf the sealed section at the end of this log, if you have clearance). Lt. JG Larsen, who had arrived on the bridge to handle sensors, made a surprising discovery (despite Klingon warships not being plant-related): we became aware that the lead ship was quite low on dilithium, and would likely be unable to boost their shields.

The smaller ships moved to flank the Odyssey and I took a shot, which seemed sort of weak and indeed failed to penetrate their shields. The phaser arrays may need tuning. The Klingon leader returned fire and missed. Lt. JG Larsen scanned one of the other ships and found out that it too was running on minimum dilithium. We immediately suspected that this was a Romulan ruse and their actual power was from singularity drives, but Larsen assured us that was not the case: just pirates low on fuel. The lead ship alone, if fully stocked, would be an even match for the Odyssey; in this case we would stand a chance against all three. I hit with another phaser blast, this one more solid, but their shields still soaked it, although just barely.

This time the lead ship is on target. Cmdr. C'Zathri was not able to dodge. Fortunately that disruptor was also a fairly weak shot. Our shields were penetrated, but our armor, although scorched, was basically undamaged. The other two ships opened fire, and this time the armor was slighly damaged. Nothing penetrated to the ship's interior, though.

Captain Topi repeated, more emphatically, that the only thing that Klingons understand is force, and that we were going to give it to them. Ch'Zathri tried some kind of complicated maneuver, but it really didn't work. work. Larsen reported the third ship was also low on dilithium. I hit the leader with another unspectacular phaser strike, and their shields held. We dodged the leader's disruptor, and one of the smaller ships hit us, but our shields held easily.

Captain Topi asked for a tactical assessment and Larsen (!) said we should keep pressure on the main ship, since it's the only one that realistically could do a lot of damage with its disruptors. He went looking for a weak point and found one. I targeted it. Again it was a fairly underpowered shot (maybe it's the capacitor banks?) but I think I hit their weak spot: we got through the shields and then drilled right through the hull.

The lead vesseled hails us. "This is the Bangor. We are recovering stolen property." I was our ambassador, since my Klingon is, if I do say so myself, quite good. I perhaps was more taunting than I should have been: "It seems like a fair fight, although we do have you outnumbered one to three". I revealed that we were trying to stop the loss of vessels to Newlin III at the request of the planetary government. Topi agreed (somewhat to my surprise) to let them depart. The Klingons threatened us as they departed, but depart they did, setting course roughly towards the Imperial Klingon States, not Meadow.

We stood down from alert. No real damage; the armor needs some repair, but no enemy fire penetrated the hull, and no casualties were incurred.

The Galatea hailed us. "Thank you for your assistance!" Their ship was damaged, they had wounded crew, and they wanted our help. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri asked me to accompany him and an engineering team to the Galatea. We don't think the Klingons were trying to destroy this ship, because they could have easily done so if that had been their plan. The Galatea was en route from Gamon to Schneiter, carrying a cargo of industrial drilling machines for resource extraction.

We explained Newlin's request to the Galatea crew and agreed to escort them to Schneiter. Then the senior staff debriefed with Captain Topi. Why did they give up? Well, they were low on dilithium but maybe they had a secret they wanted to keep? But what could be that secret?

I did a little reading and discovered that the IKS exists because of their dissatisfaction with the Empire. It's been around for something like 50 years. Why has the Empire not destroyed them? Klingons are not known for tolerating disobedience. It appears that the Empire has bigger fish to fry, and their moving a fleet through the Triangle would be a big deal. Best for everyone concerned if the Triangle can remain neutral.

All of the IKS worlds import manufactured goods. Thus the drilling machines were unlikely to have started there (thus making the Klingon claim of stolen property more unlikely), but it's quite probable they want them. They've only been there for 50 years and they just haven't built their own manufacturing infrastructure to the necessary levels yet, and have to import complex tools like the Galatea's cargo. K'linsann is the primary IKS trade hub.

I am sure there is some ideological beef between the Empire and the IKS, although the IKS is not regarded as a very substantial faction, it appears. Even the briefest of intelligence analysis revealed that the Klingon ships were definitely old and kinda Ship-Of-Theseus, built from parts of other ships. These were nowhere near top-of-the-line warships, but kind of like (pardon, I'm going to flex on my 20th Century Earth history knowledge) the 1950s cars that Cubans kept running for another half-century or more when they were under embargo. That suggests these came from the IKS rather than Klingon Empire space.

Aboard the Galataea, we met Lonnie Rogers, their captain. The crew wanted us to stay for dinner and entertainment. What they lacked in foodstuffs, they more than made up for in libations. They broke out the good stuff: Romulan Ale, Saurian Brandy, other things I hadn't even heard of before. The crew was about 30, mostly human, so very similar to the crew we found dead in the wreckage of the Ural. The Galatea's crew reported that the Klingons had been targeting weapons and propulsion and avoiding the cargo area. This, too, is consistent with the wreckage we found earlier.

This implied strongly that these had not been Official Klingons, but a pirate crew (also, they were the more human-looking Klingons, so unlikely to have been from the Klingon core worlds). They could, however, be IKS Privateers rather than just pirates, or indeed the government may conduct raids as part of official policy. These particular Klingons had no transponders, which is a bad sign in Federation space.

We speculated that the drilling machines could mine dilithium, which would make them very valuable to these dilithium-impovershed crew or, more generally, to the IKS.

We found out a few more things about the IKS worlds: no one is allowed to go to Penchan II, and no one who tried has ever returned. That seemed like a good candidate for the pirate base. The other worlds allow some trade, but one needs serious permission even to go to K'linsann, the trade hub. The IKS government carefully vets the traders allowed into its space, which suggests we are not going to be allowed onto the IKS worlds.

We learned a bit more about the Triangle:

Only the Orions go to Romulan space. Some Orions have cloaking devices, which was alarming news. Indeed, both Orions and Klingons have cloaking devices. The crew didn't don't know anything about the Mantiev Colonial Association other than that it was on the other side of the Triangle and they never went there. The Affiliation of Outer Worlds is a mutual defense pact, and the safest, most "civilized" part of the Triangle.

Lt. Cmdr Weyer talked to a Vulcan crewman who wanted to learn more about humans, and learned that the cargo of mining equipment came initially from Gamon.

After that, the evening descended into revelry

There was a pretty young dark-haired woman on the crew, Janet, and she and I spent a very pleasant evening.

We accompanied the Galatea for a bit, but Captain Topi soon got annoyed at creeping along at Warp 2, and we sent them on their way and set course for Schneiter. It turned out to be an ice planet; everyone lives in caves and in complexes tunnelled out of the ice.

Then we continued on to Schneiter.

Weyer began playing 3D Chess with Spunul and slowly coaxing info out of him. Spunul was aware that espionage is not usually a function of pharma companies, and claimed, "I can quit at any time. I am not naive." He insisted that, from a utilitarian perspective, he was doing net good, and he offered to share some intelligence with us, though not all of it. "I was gathering intelligence on Romulan cloaking technology for BioResearch. I intend to give this intelligence to BioResearch first. Anything else I will share freely with the Federation." His belief is that the Romulans are an existential threat to the UFP (and also to the Klingon Empire, but that's not his, or indeed our, concern). They do not want peace. They are buying time while they prepare an annihilation strike.

Spunul believed that BioTech having cloaking tech was a far better outcome than just the Romulans having that tech. He claimed the Klingons already possess the Romulan cloak, but not the improved versions the Romulans now have in late-stage development. Within five years, he said, the improved Romulan cloak would make them virtually undetectable. He could not procure a working sample.

Sealed Journal Section, only to be opened upon my order, after my death, or in the event that someone with a lawfully-presented Need To Know, well, Needs To Know.

I was more than a bit taken aback at our Captain's broad-spectrum animosity towards Klingons. "They only understand one thing, and that's force. We will give it to them." Now, I understand that my own racial background makes me, perhaps, more sensitive to this sort of thing than most people, but that is an alarming degree of racism to encounter from Captain Topi.

I hasten to add that she in no way conducted herself inappropriately in the encounter—indeed, she led a spectacularly successful fight against the Klingons: we saved an innocent trading vessel and effectively-singlehandedly drove off three armed Klingon warships. And it is obvious, based on her excellent working relationship (and I believe, close personal friendship) with Cmdr. Ch'Zathri, that she cannot be a general-purpose racist.

But she clearly has a great deal of antipathy towards Klingons. Given that we're going to spend a few years in the Triangle, where Klingons will be frequently encountered, and not always in hostile situations, this concerns me.

I fervently hope that my concern is ill-founded, that we return safely to the Core Worlds without this ever becoming an issue, and that no one ever reads this part of the journal entry.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7312.22 : Schniter → Comstock – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

We arrived at the system on Stardate 7312.05, and were provided with transport coordinates—landing on the surface is uncomfortable and you still have to get quite a ways down into the ice to reach the inhabited bits. Captain Topi came down with me, Lt. Cmdr. Weyer, and Lt. Larsen, leaving Cmdr. Ch'Zathri in charge on the bridge.

Their leader ("governor" would be a bit grand—"mine foreman" might be more accurate) Gavin Glov Brock greeted us: "You have come at a fortuitous time! All of our ore goes to Comstock on robotic freighters, and we've lost contact with one of the shipments…can you check on it?" Lacking any reason to stay on Schneiter (like a tauntaun, it smells even worse on the inside), we accepted from him a list of desired goods for the colony, we agreed to check on the missing ship, and we left immediately.

Given the size of an Antares-type freighter, it was surprisingly hard to find. It seemed unlikely pirates would want it: the ore has a rather low mass-to-value ratio. Eventually we detected it, about where it should be, but its transponder was silent and its computer had been shut down.

A scan revealed that it was populated by machines, suspicious given our experience on Gibraltar.

We took some EMP grenades at Weyer's urging. There was no atmosphere in the ship, so we had to wear environmental suits. That got needlessly exciting: as soon as we arrived my ears popped. I had a suit leak. Larsen stopped it and I wasn't injured, but was partially deafened.

In a cargo hold filled with a great deal of ore, we were ambushed by five robots, which appeared identical to the strange drones we had encountered at the prisoner exchange in Gibraltar. We readied our phasers quickly realized that the drones consisted of five small spheres and one larger cylinder. I took a moment to warn the Odyssey that the teleporting mothership might well be showing up to tangle with them, and took some fire.

As it turned out, the spheres could not really get through our armor. I took one out fairly quickly. The cylinder was shooting with something more powerful, but I initially took a hit from it without much happening. Then it closed the distance to me while I was taking aim, and it shot me and that really hurt. My suit was now spraying air and blood into the vacuum of the cargo hold.

Lt. JG Larsen shot the cylinder with no effect at all. It was evidently very well-armored.

I was quite angry by this point, and unloaded a full ten-round burst into the thing. That didn't do a whole lot to it either, and I began to be concerned. It took another shot at me, but I managed to dodge out of its way.

I then shot its weapon, and hit it, while taking more light fire from the spheres. The cylinder did not fire: instead, the ring with the beam weapons on it rotated 90 degrees, and another energy weapon heated up.

Lt. JG Larsen shouted out where the cylinder's armor was weakest. I gave it another ten-round burst, on target…and it was still up. The other robots moved in to flank it. Larsen hit it, then I hit it again. My ammo was beginning to run low, and my ears kept popping as my suit continued to vent.

Lt. Weyer tossed a poorly-aimed EMP grenade, which detonated and took out my suit's servos (and, we hoped, our robotic foes), but before we could take stock and follow up the attack, we were suddenly beamed to the Odyssey, which was at Red Alert. We rushed to the bridge.

Our enemy was indeed the drone mothership we'd seen before. Captain Topi ordered the use of photon torpedos, so I brought one online. It was engaging us with energy weapons, similar to Federation phasers; Lt. Weyer's console exploded. Everything was rocking as they pummeled us, and then I managed to get the torpedo away. There was an impressive light show where I hit it, but the torpedo did not punch through. Nevertheless, the ship vanished. What are these teleporting robots, anyway?

We beamed back to the freighter, where we found an impression of a rectangle over where the cylinder had first been seen. The ore around it had been leached of useful metals. Commander Ch'Zathri beamed in.

We decided to trigger the self-destruct to destroy any nanites that remained. If BioResearch has a problem with that, well, they can sue the Federation. The robots had set the freighter to a different course, one that did not go near any obvious systems.

Lt. Weyer kept trying to analyze the tech as Cmdr. Ch'Zathri set the self-destruct. We transported off and the freighter exploded.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7401.07 : Comstock – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

A couple days before we were to arrive (Stardate 7401.04), Topi briefed us: she would be authorizing shore leave. Comstock is not a Federation world, so we should ensure that all our crew are well-aware that we are in the Triangle, where Federation rules do not necessarily apply. We may, at our discretion, carry weapons.

Comstock is the de facto homeworld of BioResearch (itself a Federation company) in the Triangle. Weyer tried to work through his distrust of BioResearch: we know they're studying Romulan cloaks, and the Klingons certainly have the cloaks…and the Romulans are famously xenophobic. So…was it BioResearch that leaked the technology? The Orions have it too, but they're never going to be a Major Power and probably are not the culprits. Topi planned to deliver Spunul and invited the senior staff along for the handover.

We arrived at Comstock on 7401.06. We were expected. Their first question was "Do you have Spunul?" Yes, of course. We beamed down to an impressive lobby and met a very short (5'2"-ish) Andorian in a white lab coat there. There were four goons behind him in blue jumpsuits, a human male, a human female, a Vulcan male, and an Orion male. They were pretty clearly bodyguards. The researcher's name was Atahl Thshaannoq. "Welcome back, Spunul!" he greeted our erstwhile guest. "It is agreeable to be back." I invited everyone aboard for drinks and they turned me down flat. I said goodbye to Spunul who told me, "Live long and prosper." I replied "Peace and long life." So much for that attempt to make some contacts within BioResearch.

We noted a great many Orions moving through the lobby. Comstock rather ostentatiously makes no effort to maintain a demographic database. The only government on planet is the BioResearch security forces, which maintains the peace in the city, which functions basically like a casino. It has the usual selection of Federation races (heavy on the Orions), but no Klingons and no (admitted) Romulans.

We were faced with a decision: to carouse in the city proper, or the starport? The starport sounded more fun, if what we really wanted was a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy. We took the monorail there, which didn't sound very scummy, villainous, or even metal. On the way we argued about what kind of bar to go to, and my…difficulties with slavery steered us away from an Orion bar, on account of the Slave Girls.

We were still in uniform, but the bouncer let us in anyway after we told him we were done with business. The bar was called "The Short Cloth".

We spied a local at the bar… with three men wearing BioResearch insignia approaching him. A human, a Vulcan, and a female Tellarite. They clearly noticed us as Starfleet and did a double-take, but continued to close in. Cmdr. Ch'zathri stepped up next to him to order a pitcher of Romulan Ale and four whiskies. Broni asked the man if he could suggest a place to go to dinner. "Yeah, I can take you there." Ch'zathri added another whiskey and another glass to the order, being friendly before Those Dudes got in range.

They arrived. "Herbert. Forget about your meeting?" Ch'Zathri replied to them "Hey, Herb was about to join us for dinner. You can tag along if you want." Something about this did not sit well with them.

Herbert muttered to Cmdr. Ch'Zathri: "If you help me out here I'll make it worth your while."

And so another bar fight began. I walked up to the Tellarite and said to her (in Tellarite), "Your mother….is the very exemplar of rectitude and I have absolutely nothing foul or even insulting to say about her." She was stunned.

Ch'Zathri tried to throw the human over the bar. The Vulcan put his hand on Herbert's shoulder, obviously about to nerve pinch him.

Then we went into a full-on brawl. The other patrons seemed a little horrified, as if we were definitely tangling with the wrong people. The Vulcan pulled a gun while I grabbed the Tellarite's hand, which suddenly had a stun baton in it.

I grabbed the Tellarite's other hand and said (still in Tellarite), "Let's dance, gorgeous!" She was perplexed and tried to touch the baton to me. I could feel its heat. I tried to pry it away, and murmured to her (still in Tellarite—I was enjoying practicing my new language) "You're a very naughty girl. I like naughty girls."

She theatrically went limp, but not before telling me "Apartment F1, Nil Shuben Avenue." "Thanks for the intel, babe," I told her, but kept trying to wrest the baton away. Eventually I managed. In the meantime the other two enemy combatants had legitimately become unconscious without (I think) any real damage being sustained on our part.

As we left with Herbert, and the Human's gun—a crude energy weapon, with no stun setting—she winked at me. Being a gentleman, of course I winked back.

Herbert asked us, "you have access to a transporter out, right?" and Cmdr. Ch'Zathri replied in the affirmative.

Herbert led us to a sketchy market. We saw Enolian Space Wine being sold, and Larsen recognized gems and various minerals being sold. Herbert was in a huge hurry.

We were in the starport when we heard a BIG crash.

A whole shipping container, somewhere, had fallen and split open. Ch'Zathri and I could see that what spilled out is (from a container labelled "Luxury Apparel") crates labelled "Organdy Chemise" but which, from the way they fell and bounced, were obviously way too heavy to be bras and panties. Herbert badly wanted to get out of there. I called the Odyssey to request a scan of the crates while we skedaddled. Herbert pulled us into an alley, and we noticed BioResearch people entering the area, looking around. We requested transport.

Cmdr. Ch'zathri: "That was close. We need to have a little conversation."

Herbert: "I have my own ship! In orbit."

Weyer: "Why were they messing with you?"

"I came back to get my wife Lisu, and … it's a long story. I owe some Latinum."

Weyer: "How much?"

Herbert: "Quite a bit."

The sensor analysis: the crates were packed in a sensor-defeating material. One of them had cracked open enough to reveal small arms, which were indeed much denser than lingerie.

When we informed Captain Topi of our new guest, she seemed tired and stressed. She had been having difficulty getting info out of BioResearch.

We determined that Henry Li is currently Herbert's ex-wife's new … boyfriend? … and high up in the company.

"To whom do you owe the Latinum?"

"Withlian wants his Latinum. He was tipped off by Li."

So he thinks Withlian let Li use his security detail to get Herbert in front of Withlian.

"Had we not intervened, what would they have done to you?"

"I would have been taken to Withlian, and I think I would have been able to talk myself out of it. But maybe not."

He claims his wife was stolen by Li, who is a BioResearch VP and therefore gets what he wants.

"Precisely how much Latinum do you owe him?"

He said 100 million credits, which was…more or less half the value of his ship. Not an obscene amount of money, but certainly not nothing. Although looking at him, it's hard to imagine he'll ever get that paid off in a lifetime.

Diego determined the Bioresearch security weapon was of Romulan make, so the "Vulcan" was probably a Romulan in disguise. We contacted Herbert's ship and got one Red Zhukov. "He's on a fool's errand."

An off-camera female: "he should be looking for cargo…it's his EX-wife."

Chzathri ran a scan of the surface, looking for vehicular traffic going to the mining locations and elsewhere, in order to get a sense for traffic. Also run scans on the flora. Comstock is hot and dry.

Herbert: "how can we get my wife?"

BioResearch apparently won't let him contact her.

We got a hail from Lance Worthington on-planet, which Cmdr. Ch'Zathri answered. "Several of your officers assaulted my security agents, moments ago."

"Do you have identification?"

"One was a dark skinned man, a black man. One was an Andorian. The rest were human." I cleared my throat and pointed out to Cmdr. Ch'Zathri, sotto voce, that he did not consider the dark skinned man a human.

Mr. Worthington pointed out that BioResearch is the law here.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri asked Mr. Worthington whether he wished to press charges or file a formal complaint. He thought about pressing charges, and then decided he wants us out of the system.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri was unimpressed: "Really? I was under the impression this was a free system; how do you think you can enforce this?" Mr. Worthington backed down and said "Well, I'm upset." Then Cmdr. Ch'Zathri introduced me, and I said "I am happy no one was seriously injured. Your phrasing about the assailants did not go unheard," and stepped back out of frame.

We broke the connection, and Cmdr. Ch'Zathri said to me, "Well, Mr. Nyekundu. I guess the South DID rise again." Indeed. Now investigating BioResearch has become rather more personal for me, which may be petty. So be it.

We spoke with Herbert some more. Parveen is the crew member—his steward—who called her the "EX-wife".

Ch'Zathri: "He took your wife because you owe him money?"

"No, he took my wife because she's beautiful."

"Both Wthlian and Li want to kill you: Wthlian because you owe him money, and Li because he has your wife." Herbert averred that this was the case.

We decided to investigate Divu, who immediately gave up Luxury Apparel, which we now know to be smuggling small arms.

Ch'Zathri then interrupted Captain Topi's meditation.

When asked if we could further investigate BioResearch and Lisu, she inquired, rather tartly, "Into WHAT, Commander?" However, she did agree that arms smuggling was a crime we could and perhaps should be investigating. We need information, and crucially as Ch'Zathri pointed out, she did not say we could not go down there, get a little closer to Li and see whether Lisu is there willingly.

My own suspicion at this point is that Lisu just dumped Herbert for him; Herbert seems like a loser, and I think she's probably better off with Li.

Topi had been having a hard time with BioResearch, which regards itself as the legitimate owner and sole source of authority in the Comstock system. We've listened to the sad story of Herbert Lom and his good ship Cornucopia ("Horn of plenty" indeed!). According to him the CEO of Luxury Apparel is a Romulan.

We scanned the area and headed down in civilian clothes; I was put in charge because it's basically an investigatory mission. Our quarry is known to like sports, in particular, jet ski races. We donned disguises and even Herbert's looked good to me.

We beamed in, and evidently no one cared. It was basically a casino atmosphere.

We quickly spied Li, with a young Orion woman on his arm. She seemed perfectly comfortable. Herbert confirms that the woman was Lisu. Herbert wanted her to be beamed out, at which point I'd had enough of his lovelorn shenanigans. I said to him, "Dude, she looks completely at ease. Maybe you just lost?" Cmdr. Ch'Zathri whipped out his communicator and ordered Herbert to be beamed out. Weyer wanted to approach more closely, and just then the apparently-happy couple got up and headed for a high-end restaurant.

They got to the door and were just waved in by the bouncer. We were not. It turns out that that was the VIP entrance.

We got seats at the bar, and were confronted with super-snazzy, and incredibly expensive food. Air Truffles from Pluuh II! Caviar from Lakeland! Champagne from Meadow!

Weyer tried to snoop on the couple, but this is evidently the sort of place you take your lover to for an intimate dinner, not a place for partying your face off. She was buttering him up about picking the winners. They were very clearly not talking business; soon their talk turned to roulette. As far as I could tell, they seemed like a perfectly happy couple. While it might be fun to assassinate him because he's a rich capitalist [NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS THIS IS A JOKE HA HA] it really did not seem like we had much…grounds?

So we repaired to the tables, and I suavely said "200 credits on Black, please." Henry Li opined: "finally some luck's come to the table." His and Lisu's body language is quite natural. I chatted with him a bit: BioResearch is unsurprisinlgy the major employer in these parts, and if I'm looking for a job…they are always hiring security—he pointed at the establishment guards. Li has been here since he was 21 years old. 25 years! I complimented him on his loving wife, and he gave me a kinda "close enough" sorta look. The Orion man at the table snorted. "Did I say something funny?" He shook his head "no."

Weyer started grilling him about BioResearch. "It's not like you're working with the Romulans," and got the surprising reply, "If they're willing to buy I'd be willing to sell." I called Broni aside for a quick huddle over at the deserted GURPS table, bet some money so it looked legit, and said "this doesn't look like it's a problem, and I don't think he knows anything about Luxury Apparel"…. Broni sauntered over and casually said "Disu, right? Didn't you used to hang around with Herbert Lom?" Li asked "You know Herbert?" and her eyes got big.

Henry ased "You know that guy?" and I rolled my eyes. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri, however, said, "Yes, I know Herbert." "You work for him?" "We had some business dealings in the past." "Are you on his ship?" I loudy chortled into my sleeve. "If you see him, tell him we've been looking for him. He'll know what that means." Ch'zathri replied "I don't think I'll see him. He still owes me money." I don't think I've ever seen him lie before! It was impressive.

Then Cmdr. Ch'Zathri got very flirty with Disu. The Orion and Andorian at the wheel backed up a little. Henry said "I don't know you, sir." He looked at Disu and sayid "I think we've had enough gaming for one night."

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri exclaimed "I hope I didn't cause offense. Drinks for everyone?" but they left anyway. "Disu, I hope I see you again," and Henry glared at Cmdr. Ch'zathri as he left.

Turning to the big scary green man at the table, Ch'Zathri, who may have had more drinks than I noticed, opined "An Orion playing roulette? I thought you needed to count to be able to play roulette." Orion: "Andorian, you're trying to pick fights with the wrong people." "I merely make an observation. Drink?" "Yeah, you can get me a Romulan Ale and I'll overlook your obvious insult." "That Orion girl who just left, you know her?" "Disu? Yeah. Henry's girl. Everyone knows her. You'd be wise not to talk to her the way you did." "Yeah, he owns her." "Owns her? How'd that happen? Last time I saw her she was with Herbert…she's moved up in the world." "Yeah, Slave Girl, couldn't you tell?" "I try not to make assumptions, because as you can tell, I tend to get myself in trouble when I do?" "If it were to come to that, could I … buy her away?" "Sure, if she were up for sale." "You are of course not a slave. Do you personally own slave girls?" "I rarely deal with livestock. Slaving is a risky business." "Risk-reward's a little too rich for me." "You're a legitimate businessman, I imagine." "Correct."

I shadowed Li and Disu out. "Did you recognize them?" "Nope." "They're not Herbert's friends?" "Not that I know, it's been a while. Over a year." "If he tries to contact you again, let me know." "Of course." They went to a posh part of the city, and it was gated, and I did not follow. At no point did Henry Li get violent, and at no point did she seem unduly coerced. Herbert certainly has tried to contact her.

So…she might be Henry's property, a thing with which I'm not really OK, but Herbert's a creepy stalker, with which I am also not OK.

Was she just looking for a better deal for prospective children, as I suggested? Herbert is a junkie for her pheromones and she's controlling Henry Li now? Sure, she's legally his property, but it seems like she's calling the shots.

We beamed back up to find that Herbert was no longer onboard. He had requested that he be beamed back to his ship, which, weirdly, is still in-system.

And then Cmdr. Ch'zathri got him back over to the Odyssey WITH LIES. And got him to submit to a medical scan WITH LIES. I am astonished that this is a thing.

The upshot of those scans however, is "no." There's no physical addiction anymore, if there ever was. This is just a lovesick fool unwilling to accept that his ambitious former woman has left his ladder rung behind and is on to the next one.

It had become pretty clear that Disu is Li's property, and that the situation is not the way Herbert spun it.

Lance Worthington III, the man in charge of BioResearch in the Triangle, is the son-or-grandson of the BioResearch Universal CEO. So nepotism may have more to do with his position than ability.

Suddenly the intercom came to life: "Cmdr. Ch'zathri, report to sickbay." Captain Topi was there, unconscious. Doctor Mannheim reported: "I've sedated her; it was an emergency beam-up that I ordered. She was bleeding from her nose and unconscious. Intense pain and headache and collapsed. She had been complaining of headaches for some time, but this was sudden." Because of the rapid onset, this is probably not the effect of either the cloaking device or the shielding mineral.

The inference, of course, is that someone did something to her on the planet, and of course we suspect someone from BioResearch.

Ch'Zathri was now the acting captain. "If she wakes up, let me know," he told Mannheim.

We theorized that mayber this was somehow related to those strange robots? It didn't seem likely: BioResearch was still the primary suspect.

We listened to the recording of the distress call. Sh'kithorh, an Andorian woman, and Worthington's personal assistant was speaking. "USS Odyssey. This is BioResearch. We have your Captain here. She has collapsed. We can treat her here or we can have her beamed up." The recording itself seemed legitimate and professional; exactly what a well-trained person would do in that unusual crisis situation. A deep analysis of the message's background noise seemed legit too: it certainly sounded like the incident had happened, as described, in a fairly crowded office.

So we had nothing. The Captain had not been feeling well—she left the bridge, and was relieved by Ch'Zathri. After that, she beamed down into the BioResearch reception pad, took a meeting with Worthington, and subsequently collapsed. That seemed strange. If she was ill enough to leave her post, she should have been too ill to go back down planetside. Why did she go down that second time?

We thought we might do some investigation: Larsen and Weyer and I could beam down and do contact tracing. Captain Topi was ill, ill, she might be contagious, we don't know. We thought to ask the doctor if he could see whether her genome had been altered. It had not.

Then we decided to check the captain's official, semi-public logs. Maybe they could hint towards whether she had been poisoned by BioResearch or by the Romulans?

Those logs revealed that disproportionately, our Vulcan crew has reported difficulty sleeping since we have arrived at Comstock. Topi had a high level of something-or-other in her brain when she was beamed aboard indicating psionic activity, but it faded quickly once she was up here and sedated. Had those crewmembers been planetside?

If it was an ongoing psionic attack, there's nothing the doctor can really do to deflect it. Before beaming down, we decided to try to wake Captain Topi.

"Gentlemen! What's going on?" I asked her if she remembered the second visit.

She claimed that after leaving the bridge, she recovered a little and felt good enough to not cancel the meeting. Soon after beam-down her headache returned. She met with Worthington for not long and then collapsed. "He's quite opaque." Her headaches began when we turned Spunul over to BioResearch, in their fancy lobby. Captain Topi's whatsit levels are a little elevated but nothing like when she beamed up. She reported that she has been having nightmares. This is consistent, perhaps, with telepathic influence, but if so it is unlike any contact she had had before.

Topi had contact with Worthington, Sh'kithorh, and a few other people in and around the office. "Unless something shows up," she told us, "we're going to leave in a day."

I felt that we should check out Apartment F1, Nil Shuben Avenue, since that was the only lead I had...but it's probably just the Tellarite's home.

Indeed, two Tellarites live there: Ghetirs jav Herg and Wagra Gorg. Both sound Tellarite and female. The first one works for BioResearch security. They moved in at the same time about seven years ago. Maybe they are just roommates.

I planned to show up with some flowers and take her to out to dinner. If I showed up there and found it was a drug house or something, then we'd have something to work with.

Turned out, the other Tellarite was her mom. Anyhow, dinner went well. After some stimulating conversation, she was quite at ease and willing to share what she knew. After we won the fight, Ni (one of the other BioResearch goons) wanted to know what was up. They were supposed to take Lom to Taisram Wthlian. Why? Probably because Disu had belonged to Herbert, and Henry just wanted to screw with him. No better reason than petty jealousy suggested itself to any of the BioResearch people. I beamed up, took a shower, and reported my (non-) findings.

Meanwhile, Larsen found nothing unusual with the cloak or shielding. Whatever Topi's ailment, it has nothing to do with the cloak.

Cmdr. Ch'Zathri was on the bridge when Herbert called from Cornucopia. He seemed pretty over Disu; apparently he was just trying to play us the whole time. He asked, "Did you go to Newlin II?" No, we went to III. We were told that Ben Tolland is Herbert's friend, whom he got a job on Newlin II almost three years ago—Herbert had taken a shipment of livestock there, seen the job opportunities, and told Ben. A year after Ben started working at that mining gig, Herbert stopped hearing from him. We tell him we'll look him up if we go to Newlin II, but privately consider that ceasing to speak to Herbert is probably neither suspicious nor unusual.

For lack of any other ideas we did a general survey of the planet. Comstock is pretty barren. Luxury Apparel has facilities dotted around the planet, as do other companies that wish to avoid scrutiny (Triangle Shipping and Leederlee Component Manufacturing both showed up as examples; it's probably useful to make notes of those companies).

Something else odd: at the top of the Comstock city dome, there's something that's not the dome material, and it's not obvious what the purpose would be. It's only a meter wide, and it looks like a hole but it's not gushing atmosphere. It's silicon-rich. What might it be? It's always been there, from the earlies pictures of Comstock. It lines up with the big column in the BioResearch lobby and goes the whole 15 meters or so to the surface of the dome. It seems to be solid, so it's not a private elevator to outside the dome or something like that. So it's a private elevator to outside the dome, or something? Its crystal structure is intricate and Weyer feels it's very unlikely to be a natural crystal rather than an artifact of some kind.

Weyer called Spunul to ask about it, but didn't get any more information than he already knew.

Captain Topi had a last scheduled meeting with Worthington. Manheim gave her a drug to dull her psychic abilities beforehand, to prevent a recurrence of the episode. I asked her to ask about the column.

She was gone 90 minutes, and did not have an episode.

Her debrief: "I find LW3 to be the very flower of humanity, if you will excuse me for saying so. He is quite pleasant and accomodating and very good at getting what he wants. And what he wants is to not give up any trade secrets. I asked about the anomaly. He explained that it is a natural crystalline structure they decided to build the first building around."

I replied that our investigation had revealed that it was highly unlikely to be a natural structure, and that I trust our team much more than I trust the fertilizer being broadcast by this flower of humanity.

So BioResearch have built their headquarters around an ancient alien artifact. Maybe it's some kind of antenna? And proximity to it is what was causing the Captain's headache and nosebleed?

Anyway, next we head to Meadow. Whatever there was to uncover about BioResearch on Comstock, we missed. That was a very frustrating trip. Oh well, at least I got in a decent brawl and went on a rather pleasant date.

Lt. Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7402.06 : near Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7402.05

The last month has been tragic.

As we started out from Comstock, we had received increased reports of ore thefts and the like from Satterfeld. We thought this might be those weird robots we've encountered twice. We also learned that Paxton 3 destroyed one of Paxton 4's settlements.

We heard that BioResearch is developing T'trantine. It's a plant that allows extraction of DANA (Di-Agro Nucleic Acid) which allows crazy plant hybridization. DANA encodes fertility data.

Additionally, the Federation is considering a prisoner exchange for T'lola (the numbers station Romulan woman).

And on Stardate 7402.04, disaster struck.

During Beta Shift, Cmdr. Ch'Zathri was in the captain's chairr. I was down in the gym, having decided to devote this trip to strength training. The ship suddenly rocked massively and I was thrown to the ground. The lights went out, leaving me in pitch darkness, but soon emergency lights came on, along with a Red Alert. There was also a notable, and alarming, pressure drop. I headed for the bridge, shirtless and in my shorts, covered in sweat. We had dropped out of warp and were at a dead stop. There was no obvious damage to power plant or warp engines. Clearly we struck something, but what?

I arrived on the bridge and discovered that the weapons medium battery was completely down (on the primary hull). There were several hull breaches, and life support at fifty percent and holding. We had lost 24/40 double occupancy cabins, 3/4 luxury cabins, and the Operations & Security offices.

Apparently we had hit a quantum filament.

Captain Topi was not responding. Broni left the bridge to check on her, leaving me in charge. I sent our navigator to go get me a uniform and deodorant. Weyer called for a general roster of officers, and we could account for all but two: Topi and Lt. Ngyen Jingi, Chief of Engineering.

Captain Topi's door did not respond to voice. Cmdr. Ch'Zathri tried the emergency mechanism. The room had been open to space; there was a force field that had come online, allowing repressurization. The captain was not in the room. Broni frantically searched, making sure; she was not there. Weyer scanned for bodies floating nearby; we found six bodies in the vacuum. The Captain's was among them.

Captain Ch'Zathri made the announcement. He asked that everyone put aside their grief long enough to do damage control. Eric Nikatta, in charge of Tactical, looked at our phasers: completely destroyed. Apparently the phaser array took the direct hit. The roll bar was intact, but the medium phaser battery on the primary hull was utterly destroyed.

In all, we had 10 dead, 11 severely wounded. We recovered all remains, and set up a warning beacon.

Our life support was badly overtaxed. We managed to get it back to 60% which would be enough to keep us alive until we could get to Meadow.

6 of those 11 severely wounded died within hours. The final death count was 16, although whether the five surviving severely injured crew will return to duty is uncertain. They are at least projected to make full physical recoveries.

Stardate 7402.06

It transpired that Captain Topi, quite in character, had recorded an "In Case Of My Death" message and that I and Ch'Zathri were to be present for its playback. We went into her cabin, with its missing wall and the force field keeping the air in. There were sketches in her cabin that she drew, and she also was apparently into human and Vulcan theater.

In the recording, she spoke of her confidence in C'Zathri's lead and recommended he lean on me to understand humans and how to motivate them, she even—and perhaps characteristically for Captain Topi, though not for Vulcans in general, stated that my willingness to skirt procedure to get results may occasionally be appropriate and effective, but that I should bear in mind it is Starfleet's transparency that undergirds its success.

Good advice, taken to heart. I never told Topi—or anyone, really—that my criteria for when to ignore the rules are quite simple. I just imagine myself telling my father what I did and why, and if he shakes his head and sighs, then I don't do it.

Ship's Counselor Lt. Zelda Fleur told me that crew morale was very low. Dawn Stuart, Carl "Pud"'s wife, was taking it especially hard.

We received a subspace message from Admiral Edna Fuentes. The Triangle is her command. After we have repaired the ship (current estimates are 18 days of work) at Meadow, we should report to to Lakeland, just inside Federation space, to transfer our dead to a Federation facility. While Yeartes is a shorter journey, it is basically unpopulated, while Lakeland is a fairly cosmopolitan world.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.04 : Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7403.02

We apprised Meadow of our situation well ahead of time, since we clearly needed an extensive refit.

A female Tellarite replied: "USS Odyssey, we are saddened to hear of your situation. Somehow Weyer sharted onto the mic while we were talking. How does that even happen?!? Fortunately, we we talking to a Tellarite, and she just giggled.

7403.04

We arrived at Meadow. During our voyage, BioResearch's first production facility on Meadow came online. This research doesn't seem to be related to that super-fast-acting hybrid stuff.

Larsen piloted us in and ground against the dock. On the bright side, that scratch was barely visible among the overall damage.

Our ship…well, it was kind of amazing the Odyssey even got us here, to be honest. We will be here some time, weeks-to-months, not days.

Captain Ch'Zathri's field promotion was made official by Starfleet. I congratulated him on his command while wishing it had come under better circumstances. He thanked me.

Captain Ch'Zathri promoted Weyer to my old job, Chief of Operations, since I could not wear both the XO hat and Chief hat at the same time.

An Orion appeared on the screen: Taggar, Planetary Governor. He was the oldest Orion I'd ever seen (their usual choice of profession does not tend to favor longevity). The Captain had only been trying to get a senior engineer on the line, and Taggar graciously said, "I can put you through to a chief engineer." Ch'Zathri thanked him. Taggar told us, "We're willing to do what we can to get the wind back in your sails. We do expect to be paid." "Of course," replied our captain. Taggar told him, "Blublar Puv is an excellent engineer." Ch'Zathri asked the governor for our crew to have shore leave permission, which was quickly granted.

I'm now formally in command of Beta Shift, and Weyer of Gamma Shift. I was promoted to XO as well.

We found many BioResearch tags in our communications metadata. Most of the Meadow comms were also tagged BioResearch. BioResearch had offered to develop T'trantine and apparently Meadow has accepted.

I started planning a meeting—drinks and conviviality with the Planetary Governor. I looked for a good watering hole to take Governor Taggar to…and it looks like a plague struck bars about five months ago. I found a nice cozy steakhouse/bar kinda thing, called "The Interesting Plate Bar" — it's more clever in the Orion.

It took a little schmoozing, but I managed to get a lunch date with him. We had a martini and he seemed a little loosened up. As with most Orion men, he was a big guy, I'd say 6'1". He looked a little beat-up, with the scars that say he wasn't always an administrator. He claimed he didn't have any problems he needed or wanted the Odyssey's help with, and he was willing to let Larsen tour the BioResearch facility, as long as he did not take a recording device and delivered some good PR soundbites afterwards.

The reason that everything closed five months ago is that BioResearch bought the entire planet, and offered a resettlement package to the inhabitants; most of them took it.

It turned out that Taggar brokered the deal that let BioResearch buy the planet, which is why he's the governor.

I asked about some other features of the Triangle. Morning Garden (which I chose because I presume it's also an agricultural world) is out of BioResearch sphere and is considering affiliation with Baker's Dozen. I asked Taggar about his past, and he said he was a "classic Orion Pirate" who came to the realization that that is not an old man's occupation. BioResearch is always hiring security people, so he signed on and rose through the ranks. I found Taggar very hard to read. He seemed most cagey when talking about what happened to the previous population; maybe the story isn't quite as rosy as the one he told. At any rate, he seems like a highly competent administrator and probably a pretty good planetary governor.

Once we had a little downtime and were not fighting to keep air in the ship and the nose pointed in the right direction, Captain Ch'Zathri processed my field promotion to Commander. Weyer became Lt. Cmdr., and Larsen full Lieutenant.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.05 : Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

We were introduced to one B'barhk.

Triangle Life and Casualty: BioResearch is among their customers. She wanted a meeting ASAP (this was long before we found out about the genocide). She beamed aboard.

that if you're insured, run-of-the-mill piracy Just Doesn't Happen. I was openly dubious that pirates are going to identify a ship before they attack and look up the Triangle Life And Casualty customer database. She assures us that it Just Won't Happen.

So presumably she represents the friendly legitimate business arm of the Orion Syndicate. Their prices are…quite high. Triangle Life and Casualty is a division of Wthlian Loan—the businessman who was after Herbert Lom. One can assume that, rather than meticulous pirates, the piratical crews will be given a list of ships that declined to purchase insurance. We turned her down—she repeated several times that if we bought her insurance, TLC (aww, cute acronym) would insure that we received only the highest-quality parts. Not hard to read that one either. After Captain Ch'Zathri turned her down and she left, I realized that I had really wanted to please her. She was very compelling, presumably pheromonically.

I exhorted our engineers to be very vigilant, and indeed we caught a substandard part: a weapons part.

Lt. Larsen readied for his tour of the DANA research plant. He chose Ensign Setok, a science officer and astrophysicist to accompany him. Lt. Cmdr. Weyer plays chess with him and vouched for him, and stated that in his opinion, he probably had an eidetic memory, which would be helpful since we won't be bringing any recording devices. Setok was initially surprised at his selection, until Larsen pointed out that he likely had the sharpest memory of anyone aboard.

Dr. Adams (a medical degree, it turned out) greeted them. She led them on a tour. The lab seemed completely legitimate: as far as Larsen and Setok could tell, it looked like it was indeed designed to extract DANA from T'trantine. On 7402.15 they produced a test batch of DANA, with complete success. It shouldn't improve hardiness, exactly, but it will provide easy hybridization, which will, in theory, make it easier to grow a wide variety of crops on a much broader selection of worlds. There was security at the lab, but not nearly as prevalent as it was on Comstock. Lt. Larsen then went all sacred-site mystic on Dr. Adams (it's not an act: he really is a botanist because of some kind of religious calling; I don't get it either, but it doesn't seem to be harming anyone). She was a bit taken aback but took it in stride.

Lt. Larsen praised the facility for the cameras. "This facility honors the sacred world. I can see it's still new and there's a lot of work to do in order to help the facility reach its potential. But it clearly honors the sacred nature of spreading agriculture to worlds where growing plants is more difficult."

Dr. Adams was heavily tattooed, but according to Larsen, her tattoos are those of a biology enthusiast, nothing more sinister. I got the feeling he might have been a bit envious.

After their return, Lt. Cmdr. Weyer asked Captain Ch'Zathri for permission to hack BioResearch. Captain Ch'Zathri granted Weyer's request do some planetside snooping, but balked at hacking. Weyer quickly determined that all Meadow traffic goes through a single subspace relay, and hacking THAT would not be overtly illegal. We're going to check out the subspace relay station (not that far from the Quantum Filament) on our way out. But we have a couple weeks of repair work first. So, planetside, since we have a couple weeks of repairs to get done before we can leave…

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.15 : Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

I decided to find out about slavery here. There are not many people on the planet yet. It's almost entirely BioResearch DANA extraction. Someone could get a slave girl if they really wanted to, but the relative lack of availability is a matter of demand, not ethos. Prostitution and the drug trade seem to be mostly on a saloon-by-saloon basis, rather than syndicate-controlled, at least not so far. Perhaps that's only because it's still small scale.

Larsen did some tourism, and discovered he loved Meadow. His first trip was with Mannheim, then with Setok, and then with Mannheim's assistant. The third trip he heard machinery and saw bulldozers just clearcutting the forest. While upsetting, it didn't seem illegal, just monoculture in action.

Meanwhile, a record search revealed that after 7310, there's just no more information on the locals. Elder Brother Vran was one of the people engaged. Did he land anywhere after leaving Meadow? Nope. That was the last mention of him. After having rejected the initial BioResearch offer, he just disappeared. Same thing for Elder Sister Kalan. The whole Council, in fact, seems to have just vanished about then.

Could our captured warp sled be from the diaspora/massacre? Probably not.

Stardate 7403.15

I was suspicious and as we start to get systems back online, I go along on a shuttle ride, purportedly to get comms back in tiptop shape, but actually to do sensor sweeps for mass graves.

We found something. It was not exactly a mass grave, but a huge concentration of ash. Definitely organic. If it's human (or other humanoid sentient), it's hundreds of thousands of bodies. We reported immediately to the Captain and then went in. We found a shut-down industrial waste incineration plant. This would produce plasma-level heat, so it's unlikely that much in the way of artifacts would have survived. But it's not gonna transmute anything, so we can fairly easily tell whether it's Human or Vulcan incineration rather than plant slash piles.

I saw, within the facility, that there were containers and packages associated with hazmats. So the people who worked here were working in hazmat suits. 5-sigma probability that this this matches human and Vulcan incineration, not plants. We documented the ash pile and took a sample with us for future prosecution. We found a lot of DNA in the staging area for the incinerator, and a lack of same outside the staging area. So the victimes were transported here.

In my opinion, the residue implied the people were already dead upon transport. So…BioResearch killed hundreds of thousands of people and transported them here? Larsen scanned and picked up Dengue virus-analogue; but not just any such virus, a weaponized version of Dengue, optimized for Vulcans (who had been the bulk of the previous population).

All in all, this seems pretty damn bad. In my estimation, Lance Worthington III has just gone from "douche" to "monster".

I collected an admissable sample from the giant ash pile, and Larsen scanned Topi's quarters in case she had been infected with this by BioResearch.

We tried to comfort ourselves with the thought that genocides like this, in the UFP, are a thing of the past. At least, we hope so.

We found nothing at all in the Meadow newspaper archives and social media about a plague. It's just that all updates stopped on 7309.23.

The virus is a mutation of previous strains. It could plausibly be a natural variant, but I doubt that.

There were about 800,000 people here before, very dispersed. We made a visit to a former community and landed at a homestead. There were no life signs. The house looked abandoned, but from the architecture it was a Vulcan dwelling. The house logs revealed that was correct: a man, a woman, and five children. I found a recording pad from one of the children hidden under her mattress. There was no passcode or anything. The recording showed a small Vulcan child with pink ribbons and darting eyes. "We are getting sick but my parents assure me that medicine will be coming. I am not scared." Then, "Stryck is very ill but my parents assure me that we will be receiving aid soon. I am not scared." The last entry: "My mother and father have died. I am going to contact BioResearch for the vaccine. I am scared." That was recorded on 7309.26.

The family conveyance is still at the site. Its logs show that it left property on 7309.24, went to town (to a pharmacy), and came back.

There are no bodies on-site; there is no evidence anyone carried them out. It seems likely they were beamed straight to the incinerator.

Someone scrubbed the place, pretty well, and did not leave any bootprints or anything.

I swear that I am not going to let these BioResearch bastards get away with this. We don't quite have proof that they deliberately murdered the entire population of a planet, but we're getting close. I will find that proof, and then I will see that Lance Worthington III and the other BioResearch executives are brought to justice.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.20 : Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

We decided to research BioResearch's vaccine production. How long did it take? Were they already sitting on it?

There was no mention of a Dengue outbreak in the public media.

The pre-acquisition population was between 10⁵ and 10⁶. The amount of ash we found represents the remains of between 10 and 50% of the world's population. I partitioned my evidence so that I could leave a sufficient amount to make a case with the commanding officer at Lakeland, and an "in the event of my death" note, when we arrived. Captain Topi taught me well.

Weyer went looking for suspicious deaths of BioResearch scientists on Meadow. He found no deaths; no illnesses. But occasional gaps in productivity among the higher-ups, incl. Worthington. Maybe these were while they were doing their black site stuff?

We also asked Ch'Zathri to be extra-vigilant about the repairs that had been made.

Taggar took a long vacation right before taking charge of Meadow. Suspicious, but circumstantial.

We checked out the subspace relay: someone went to some trouble to purge buffers on the orbital station right around the time bad things were happening on Meadow. Weyer worked out a tracking gizmo. We planned a little cloaked action on a shakedown run to sneakily plant the bug on the orbital station. Weyer, as the electronics expert, did the actual EVA.

I had exhorted our engineers to be very vigilant; we caught another substandard parts: an actually-sabotaged panel.

We invited B'barkh back and immediately siezed her and brought her to the brig, which had been made a pheromone-free zone via a combination of filters and positive pressure. She was of course not pleased.

Taisram Wthlian called the Captain up. B'barhk, it turned out, was both his Chief Collection Agent and the Division Head of Triangle Life and Casualty. The Captain, not to put too fine a point on it, reamed him a new one. Sabotaged parts. Investigation. That's all we can tell you.

Honestly it was delightful to see Captain Ch'Zathri be so abrasive. He gave Wthlian the same advice he gave her: "keep distance from us and we will not interfere with you." "What can I do to ensure her immediate release?" asked Wthlian. "Give me the individual that sabotaged the panel, or I will have to hold her until at least Schneiter. If you can ensure I only get good parts, then you can find out who's supplying sabotaged parts."

"What do you intend to do with this individual if he even exists?"

"Surely there's some local law about sabotage. If not, well, I'll take him to Lakeland. You have 24 hours. Ch'Zathri out."

I was watching the exchange, of course: Wthlian, who had been putting on the placid legitimate businessman face, was extremely angry when Broni terminated the call. I think we're going to have trouble with pirates from here on out, but at least we have shown we are not easy marks.

While waiting for Wthlian's next move, I began chatting up B'barhk, in Orion. I told her stories that will be found in the public record, and nothing classified; for instance, the tale of the Desperate Klingon Pirates. She made a veiled threat about luck changing. I realized that touching her for the patdown almost convinced me to do what she wanted. Powerful pheromones indeed.

Her backstory is, according to her, simple: Mr. Wthlian found her in a more traditional role and recognized that her talents were going to waste. I found her very charming indeed. I excused myself and went back to the video feed.

She called for a guard, and she got Claude (the Security Chief) to talk about himself, collecting intel as she did with me. That's fine; no one is going to say anything that isn't part of the public record.

Captain Ch'Zathri called up Lakeland for instructions about our captive.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.21 : Meadow – The Triangle : USS Odyssey

B'Barhk was unhappy that when it was time for her toilet break, she was given a very staunchly heterosexual woman guard.

At the eleventh hour (well, really, the twenty-third), we got communications from Taisram Wthlian. He said he had the saboteur. Ch'Zathri promised him safe passage and points out that he did promise the same to B'Barhk, but of course circumstances were different and she had no reason to suspect anything unusual was about to occur.

Wthlian and his prisoner were beamed aboard. The prisoner was a short (5'0") Hispanic male human, middle-aged, blonde hair. We performed the prisoner exchange.

I got to tell B'Barhk, as I returned her comm and stiletto, "As the saying goes, Orion *priests* carry *one* knife. I thank you for your forbearance." She winked at me.

The body language indicated she and Wthlian are likely a couple.

Lt. Dohman on the bridge indicated that there was an unusually deep scan proceeding from the spaceport. So Ch'Zathri raised his shields and of course that precluded transporting out, which in turn did not sit well with Wthlian.

The Captain told me I should make our guests comfortable, and Wthlian requested the lounge, so I took them there and allowed them to chat with whomever they wanted under supervision.

Meanwhile, on the bridge: Captain Ch'Zathri talked to the station chief, who put him through to Taggar. Captain asked about the deep scans and was told, "Standard procedure, after big repairs like this."

Ch'Zathri then told B'Barhk and Wthlian they were free to go, and that Wthlian probably agrees with the Captain that their paths should never cross again. B'Barhk stroked my buttocks as she went, accidentally. I accidentally returned a sort of twerking side-to-side clench. I'm getting to...well, not like, but kind of admire Orions.

The "saboteur" was one Johnny Santiago. He looked psychologically beaten. He had worked for Meadow Spaceport as semi-skilled general labor since 7401.12. Nothing before that, at least with a quick record search.

There are two possibilities: BioResearch is acting as a cover for Orions doing bad stuff, or BioResearch is letting Orions in BioResearch do bad stuff and BioResearch doesn't care. This Santiago guy didn't exist until BioResearch got to Meadow and then he was hired. He's obviously a plant, possibly he did it, possibly he didn't, but he's been picked for the fall.

Interrogation was semi-fruitful:

"I hate the Federation." "Is that a fact?" "Why do you hate the Federation?" "Why should I talk to you?" "Because it's gonna be real boring." He says he wasn't working under orders. He is not aware of other sabotage.

Santiago confessed to sabotaging the panel, which was just a random hull panel (he corrected us when we claimed it was a communication panel, so he probably really did do it). He signed the confession, confessing to weakening the panel with a molecular disruptor so it would buckle under stress (again, we didn't tell him the method of sabotage, and he got that right).

Ch'Zathri had a little back and forth with Taggar about Wthlian while I watched. "You wanna pay your loans to Wthlian," was Taggar's advice. Ch'Zathri offered up Santiago to Taggar. His only true desire is that should Starfleet require Taggar's services, we not be uncertain of them because of Mr. Wthlian and his affairs. Taggar got tense during that conversation, but did say, "Wthlian is not used to hearing 'no' and I am pleased that he heard it."

Taggar then got a message, and said "I have the results of your scan." Then he looked very surprised. "What the hell do you have growing through the hull of your ship?!?" "Nothing to worry about," replied the Captain.

Then we finally left Meadow.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7403.30 : Meadow's Off-Planet Subspace Relay : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7403.23

We received a subspace broadcast on TLC: Starfleet Vessel Odyssey arrived on 7303.04...they repaid Meadow by kidnapping B'Barhk. Under no circumstances should any free people of the Triangle do business with them!

Stardate 7403.30

We arrived at the subspace relay. This one was purely robotic. Weyer searched its logs and found one message fragment from Meadow ground station, with access code. The ground station is the one inside the BioResearch director's office.

The message was as follows:

Stardate: 7309.25. STATIC…dow population dying…STATIC…fever rampant…STATIC…no help from…STATIC…search employees…STATIC…murdered…STATIC

We made two copies of the message, one for us, and one for Lakeland. Intelligence Analysis revealed: the things that are there are what one would expect. What was absent was much more interesting: there were very few communications between BioResearch higher-ups and Taggar; no comms at all from Worthington, for example. There were plenty from BioResearch heads to lower tiers, but zero high-level comms to Taggar. The higher-ups HAVE to have communicated with each other, FTL, but not via THIS subspace relay. How did they do it? Private comms (unlogged) on this station? This particular station is Vulcan and as far as Weyer could determine, not previously tampered-with, so probably not that. Those weird robots? A secondary subspace network? How about that antenna/crystal/alien artifact thing in the center of the BioResearch HQ? We reinstalled the relay software and, while we were at it, another tap. Those actions succeeded. However, we attempted to take a backup of the relay state prior to the reinstallation, and that part did not go so well.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7404.17 : Schneiter, The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7403.23

Lt. Zelda Fluer wanted to talk to me; while she has been doing an extremely commendable job under duress as our impromptu ship's counsellor, she would like an actual trained counsellor hired when we get to Lakeland. I radioed ahead to Lakeland and asked.

Stardate 7403.27

There was a security alert (a week after leaving subspace relay): security around the cloak has been breached. It was quickly traced to Dawn Stewart, crewman (Operations); she was the wife of Pud, killed in the Quantum Filament episode. He did have legitimate access to the device, and it appears he (reasonably) never considered his wife as a threat vector. We picked her up in her quarters and hauled her to the brig. My men said "it was like she was expecting us."

She told me "I just wanted to know something more about him. I knew he was working on something, I thought…it's been different since he's been gone." She admitted her actions were stupid. In my estimation, she was grief-stricken, telling the truth, and not a spy. She admitted to knowing the ship had a cloak, but claimed she had not told anyone. I ordered her confined to quarters and relieved of duty; after consideration, Captain Ch'Zathri decided to loosen her confinement and put her on menial Operations duty. She will receive mandatory counselling when we get to Lakeland (and hopefully get a properly-trained counsellor).

Stardate 7403.30

The Captain received a message from Gibraltar. That dude we found on the Phylosian ship, Tolan Gratlon, had been detained and told them that Ch'Zathri would be a character reference. His analysis for them was "mostly harmless."

Remember (see Stardate 7212.17) when Weyer found an adorable Na'sing but we didn't let him bring it aboard. Well recently a science team has followed up: it seems to be a harmless, could make a cute pet, and probably not a Tribble, but still.

Stardate 7404.16

We arrived at Schneiter.

Larsen brought us in. We detected molecules in orbit around Schneiter that weren't there before; silicates and stuff, not debris.

We hailed the planet and Shiso (female Tellarite) answered. We informed her of the missing freighter and the weird robots. "On behalf of BioResearch, we thank you." Her superior, Gavin (male Tellarite), wanted to know if the robots were round, which they were, so we decided to beam down and talk to them in person.

We started talking, in an uncomfortably hot conference room. We noticed a sphere floating in the shadows. Broni nodded to us. I slipped my phaser out and set it to disintegrate. Larsen performed an active scan and the robot vanished: no subspace signature, no transporter effects.

We asked our Tellarite friends, "Are you aware there was a robot in the room?" "Not at the moment but we do see them around." They just report them and leave them alone.

Larsen asked them about the silicates in orbit. They claimed not to know anything. They were being evasive about whether they were putting mining waste in orbit. And then Gavin started deflecting with feigned confusion about evasive versus abrasive. We told them that in fact we did self-destruct their ore carrier, and it obligingly blew up. They admitted to receiving the memo to not do business with us.

Gavin asked, "Did you do anything to provoke these robots?" "We're Starfleet. We provoke a lot of people. But no, as soon as we beamed in they attacked." We turned over the data and pointed out that the robots were capable of being hostile.

This all seemed really weird. You'd think they'd care more that these unknown robots were just hanging around.

We went back to the ship, and I scanned to see whether we have any robotic stowaways. Apparently we did not.

As we prepared to leave orbit, a Romulan Bird Of Prey suddenly decloaked! Its weapons ports were hot, and we went immediately to Red Alert. We got ready to cloak, and I hit them with a phaser shot. They fired, didn't hit us, we cloaked, and then escaped to warp. That was pretty sad.

Sensor data indicated that the ship had been heavily modified. Possibly Orion Pirates in a Bird Of Prey? We had managed to get life sign readings: mostly Orion. That must have been a stolen ship.

Sensor analysis from the Schneiter incident showed that after the robot went away, there were still slight graviton emissions. Maybe it was using a wormhole?

The Lakeland Professor to whom we sent that data agreed that it was consistent with some kind of tether or something, but...it's no known technology.

Stardate 7404.23

Scuttlebutt says that there may be another prisoner exchange coming up? The Romulans are willing. They somehow seem less scary now that we know the Orions can steal their ships.

On stardate 7405.14 we expect to arrive at Lakeland, mostly known as a vacation spot.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7405.15 : Lakeland, UFP near The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Prior rumors:

On 7404.24 a Triangle-built yacht was found without any crew, found as salvage. Notably absent: tumbling? At warp? Covered in blood? It sounds like the Space Marie Celeste.

Weyer heard on 7405.01 that a different research team had adopted the cute whatever-it-was we found on 7212.17.

7405.02: Joe Moore, the Orion Pirate, who was placed in witness protection has disappeared with his family. That could be good, but more likely it's extremely bad.

Stardate 7405.14

We arrived at Lakeland.

On arrival at Lakeland, we got an incoming communication, which Lt. Dohman reported was from Admiral Fuentes. Captain Ch'zathri took the call: "Captain. I hope your trip was pleasant." "How may I help you, Admiral?" "I need to see you at your earliest possible convenience. I'll be in my office." Ch'zathri left Larsen in command and he, Weyer, and I beamed down.

We were ushered into the Admiral's office. As soon as the door closed, she said: "Captain Ch'zathri, this is somewhat of a personal nature to you. Your men are welcome to stay, but..." Captain Ch'zathri introduced me as the XO and Weyer as Chief of Operations, and said "Thank you for the consideration but please carry on."

I noticed that Admiral Fuentes had a short haircut, with the Starfleet logo shaved into it, rather like Captain Massey on the Farragut. It really is a cool hairstyle, but I just can't bring myself to lose the Afro.

Fuentes said, "There are some in Starfleet who are not sure you are the best choice to continue the Triangle mission." She made an offer: a Saladin-class ship could be Ch'zathri's command immediately, and he'd keep the captain rank. Or he could continue as the captain of the Odyssey if he made a case before the council and that case was successful.

This would be a job interview, not a court-martial: there have been no specific allegations or charges against the captain. I asked the admiral whether I should present my evidence—which I considered compelling—for why we are the right crew for the Triangle to her, and was told that it should wait for the council meeting.

The Council was composed of Admiral Fuentes, Commodore Esiss Ch'eshehlos (an Andorian, and in charge of Lakeland), and Captain Andrea Memmo, an Alpha Centauran woman, captain of the USS Kongo.

I intuited that Ch'zathri would not wear his dress uniform and decided to dress down in solidarity. As it happened, Weyer did not wear his dress uniform either. Perhaps the Captain tipped him off.

When we arrived, Admiral Fuentes was not wearing her dress uniform, but the Commodore and Captain Memmo were. We were told that the purpose of the meeting was to determine if the field promotion should be made permanent and if Ch'zathri should continue in command of the Odyssey and whether he should continue its five year mission.

Weyered asked to play Captain Topi's final message to Ch'zathri, and, over the Andorian Commodore's objections, Fuentes allowed it. Memmo stated that Captain Massey had told her that Ch'zathri had some command experience, and experience with working cases against organized crime. Her mind, she said, is open.

I prepared to present my case, and the Admiral cleared the room of the reporter and bailiff. I presented the evidence of genocide (particularly our recordings and samples from the giant ash pile) and BioResearch involvement thus far and made sure that the Admiral would take a copy of my evidence. My presentation obviously shook the council. I noted that Commodore Ch'eshehlos looked disappointed; I had just stuck a pin in his plan to argue that some other crew could carry out this mission just as well.

The Admiral brought back the bailiff and reporter. Then Commodore Ch'eshehlos spoke, and basically gave the "he's a great engineer but not ready for command" speech we expected. "It's not his turn yet" was basically the crux of his argument.

Captain Ch'zathri made the case that the work we did in Deneb was rather like what we're doing here, and that he did indeed command a vessel for a while, in some rather difficult circumstances.

Memmo asked for explanation of our organized crime investigation in the Deneb Core, and Ch'zathri talked about the Kovick-A'kev and our dealings with them. The Commodore asked Captain Ch'zathri: "what would you say to a command officer with a desire to command a starship who does everything right and sees that someone like yourself, eight years out of the academy, has been given command of a Miranda-class starship?" Ch'zathri said that he didn't know—someone must always be disappointed when commands are assigned, in that there are more people who would like to captain starships than starships to go around. He concluded with "I suppose, sir, being Andorian, I would remind him of an Andorian phrase: 'Let your woes become your deadliest weapons.'"

"I knew Topi better than anyone else on the council. I have no doubt that if she were here she would be firmly in approval of your continued captaincy." But then she continued: "If Engineering is your first love, though, should that be your contribution to Starfleet? You can be an Engineer on any starship in the fleet. Are you certain you want to command the Odyssey?

"I am certain," replied the Captain. We were sent outside to await the council's decision.

After a while…the council affirmed Ch'zathri as captain of the Odyssey, its five-year mission unchanged. We were relieved but not greatly surprised.

My reading of the Council suggested that the Andorian was madder than a wet hen. He didn't think Ch'zathri should be a captain, at least not yet. Admiral Fuentes was sympathetic, but could have been swayed, and Captain Memmo could have gone either way. I think Weyer's presentation of Captain Topi's faith in Ch'zathri, my laying out that we had made significant progress on a very major case, and the Captain's clear statements of how our struggle against the Kovick A'Kev had prepared him for this command all combined to make a compelling argument.

We were to meet with the Admiral the next day, and I resolved to introduce my Orion Feminism project in the course of that meeting.

Stardate 7505.15

We were greeted by Admiral Fuentes and an older man, wearing a red shirt with Commander stripes; he was 6'2" and pretty weather-beaten: Commander Hernandez, in charge of security on station and cleared to know everything about the Triangle.

The Admiral laid out our three key mission parameters:

1) The Federation cannot defend against a Klingon-Romulan alliance. The Klingons have begun using cloaking technology, and Romulans have been using Klingon starship designs. We should determine what the Klingon-Romulan relationship is: do they have an alliance? Are they sharing technology? We hope not.

2) Increase Federation influence in the Triangle. At least as important is that we not encourage Klingons or Romulans to increase their influence. We should do our best to ensure that Triangle developments benefit the UFP and that we show the benefits of allying with UFP rather than the other two players.

3) Gather intelligence on Orions. Where does their money come from? Who are their leaders, both in Federation space and in the Triangle?

Ch'zathri told the Admiral that the Orion alliance with corporations is concerning. Their ability to disrupt commerce is, in his view, problematic. That provided a nice segue into my pitch.

Effectively: B'barkh is a very formidable woman, and when we talked, she mentioned that she had come from a "more traditional" background. While she seemed to genuinely enjoy being with Wthlian, I've got to believe that there are other B'barkhs, and that at least some of them would be sympathetic to the "well, it's great that you managed to get your talents as something other than a whore recognized, but wouldn't it be nice if other Orion women didn't have to?" argument. While I, as a member of a once-arbitrarily-enslaved group, am not the wrong person to deliver that message, surely somewhere in the UFP there is a rich Black woman, fluent in Orion language and customs. That person should be identified and encouraged to start a scholarship fund, or something similar, for talented Orion young women. This would be useful not merely because it would be a good thing, but for the access it would give that person to people like B'barkh. And if enough influential Orion women get on board with this…their societal support for slavery may crumble. If the UFP did this like a classic 20th-century CIA campaign, behind the plausible deniability of "hey, it's a philanthropist doing what she wants to do with her vast fortune", it might well lead to the galaxy being a better place for the UFP and for half of the Orions.

I was blown off by the Admiral and Commander, but, hey, at least I made the pitch. Who knows, maybe one of them will suggest it at a policy meeting somewhere.

Hernandez told us he found our evidence of genocide on Meadow compelling, but BioResearch is huge and influential. We would need an ironclad case. I agreed and said that is exactly why I felt that I had solid evidence, but did not yet have a case I would bring to prosecution, and thanked the Admiral for allowing me to continue to pursue it.

After we returned from that meeting, we found a message from Memmo for Ch'zathri. She wanted to meet him about his desire for a ship's counsellor, and she asked the Captain to bring his first officer and Larsen in his role as head of science.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7405.25 : near Lakeland, UFP near The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7405.15

We met Captain Memmo at a bistro. Yolanda Lee was with her. I remembered her, as did Captain Ch'zathri: she was the woman who spiked the coffee with cordrazine at the Academy during a chess tournament, causing everyone to turn violent. She's a counsellor now? Huh, one hell of a redemption arc, I guess. 6505.15. She's meeting us now on the ninth anniversary of that incident, which I found amusing.

We found that she was now Lt. JG Lee. We explain the situation, that Lt. Fleur has been doing a good job but it's not what she is trained for. Lee would like to join us. Ch'zathri immediately accepted her offer—apparently the two of them had had a conversation that was very meaningful to her after that incident, and they obviously both think highly of the other. I initiated the paperwork to get her quarters and a duty schedule.

The next thing to happen: I think Memmo asked Ch'zathri out on a date. She was subtle about it, and it's possible I entirely misread that. Anyway, above my pay grade, and after the Captain's recent confusion about the phrase "blowing off" I'm not going to venture any opinion or commentary for which I am not specifically asked.

Stardate 7405.21

We've stayed on Lakeland for a week; most of the crew got a reasonable amount of shore leave, and the senior staff attended a lot of funerals.

Captain Ch'zathri took the ship to the orbital facility for a thorough investigation of whether anything else unauthorized had been installed.

We departed Lakeland on Stardate 7405.21.

Stardate 7405.23

We recieved a distress call.

It was the feckless Captain Lom Of the Cornucopia. Yes, our good buddy Herbert. With a certain amount of eyerolling, we agreed to go rescue him. I tried to talk Captain Ch'zathri into putting me in the captain's chair while he went and hot-rodded the engines to get us there faster, but, alas, he made the entirely correct decision that while this might be a matter of some urgency, it was by no means an emergency.

The Cornucopia had had some sort of Warp malfunction. They wanted to use us as a mobile repair station; because their heating pool is broken, their fabricator is offline, and they can't make the parts they need. We pointed out to Lom that Lakeland was a mere two days away (well, maybe a week for them, but still). "It is an interesting failure," claimed Lom, and sent us the diagnostics. He wasn't wrong. Their engineer, Red Zokov, did all the right things. The heating pool was definitely broken, and it was definitely not just duty fatigue. I started to smell a rat.

Although obviously we would have been well within our rights and duties to give Lom a pat on the back and send him to Lakeland, I reasoned that we knew for a fact that Lom had gotten on Wthlian's bad side. And so I wanted to inspect their ship to see if we could find evidence of sabotage. That argument carried the day.

Stardate 7405.25

We arrived at the Cornucopia, and Parveen greeted us "There are some things we didn't want to discuss over subspace." In fact, they had missed an insurance payment to WLC.

"Nice starship you got here. Shame if anything broke." I laughed, loudly and a lot. Then we took a look at the fabricator. It's mechanically sound, but also was obviously not working, so we brought Lt. Cmdr. Weyer over to have a look. The software was full of catastrophic errors. There is no way it could have worked at all in this condition. Lom said that the last time it had been updated was when they were at Comstock, about the same time he had his run-in with Wthlian. But it only failed on the 22d, so the logical conclusion was that somehow a command had been sent, faster than light, to cause the fabricator firmware to corrupt itself.

I asked the Odyssey to download the presumed effective revision. We compared the checksums, and I explained to Parveen what I was looking for. Whatever the command channel was, it was not a standard subspace message.

We did a very deep scan looking for a mineral like that from the Comstock Crystal. We found traces on the program chip…since removed. Interesting.

The Odyssey got back to me: the new download most definitely did not match what the Cornucopia had (and indeed looked much more like it was supposed to, in terms of being a functional program and not gibberish). We saved a copy of the current contents and then reflashed the chip. We had planned to get what residue we could off the chip and then clean it, but the residue had infused into the chip sufficiently deeply that it could not be excised without destroying the chip. Chemically, the residue was an exact match to the crystal…which we had already hypothesized somehow functioned as an antenna for FTL communications that were not standard subspace.

While the fabricator should work again now (at least unless or until it is sent the suicide signal once more), I recommended that the Cornucopia replace the whole board at Lakeland, and wrote a short recommendation asking for that replacement to be done and charged to us. Lom was grateful, and this certainly seems to me to be a legitimate expense in the course of our investigation. I also contacted Lakeland and asked them to please pass that board to Cmdr. Ernest Hernandez, the Security Chief, and request that he keep it with the other materials we had gathered for him.

I then asked the Cornucopia's crew to keep us informed if things get ugly again. Lom kept talking about his worry for his friend on that moon of Newlin II. We are going to be in the neighborhood, so it's probably worth a detour. Lom agreed with us that anything said in subspace in the Triangle is well-eavesdropped.

We made our way onward to Pluuh.

Stardate 7407.29

We arrived at Pluuh.

Along the way, we picked up some news: there has been a civil war in the Mantiev Colonial Association. Its previous government is now in exile.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7407.29 : Pluuh II, UFP near The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7407.29

We arrived at Pluuh.

We were greeted by a human woman on the comms, and then Governor Lurb, a very tall Tellarite came on. "We got a situation. Something out of system recently crashed in the swamps. Can you investigate?"

Governor Lurb stated that the scans of the inbound object showed that it had not been under control, and was probably artificial rather than a meteorite.

He asked us to investigate, to tread lightly, and to ascertain if there had been any sort of hazmat contamination. We beamed up to the Odyssey to prepare. I was in charge of the mission: Captain Ch'zathri remained aboard the Odyssey. Dr. Mannheim, however, came with us.

We easily found the crash site: there was a metallic object about 25 yards in length and roughly cylindrical. We located a decent landing spot.

The object was definitely a ship. There's some heat damage but it must have come in pretty shallow, and the wreck looked possibly survivable. Weyer sent out a reconnaissance drone, which saw that both airlock doors were open. One side of the ship was scorched. On each side, the top of the door was above water, but some water had gotten into the ship.

A scan of the area revealed no animal life signs. There appeared to be no contamination, and the atmosphere was breathable if unpleasantly hot and wet. When breathed, the aroma was musty and fungal but not awful.

We waded over to the slightly-more-out-of-the-water airlock, noting that the ship was a Vulcan design. I immediately had a bad feeling about this. Our scans reported six Vulcan corpses inside, but no pathogens. My immediate theory was that these people were fleeing Meadow and died of the plague. Checking the ship identification with the Odyssey we indeed found that the ship was owned by one Skass, Vulcan, formerly of Meadow, and that Meadow was its last port of call.

It is fortunate that the wreck was found in Federation space. I reminded the rest of the away team that this was likely a crime scene, and that it would be imperative to do our evidence collection very carefully according to protocol, because I intended to build an airtight case against BioResearch for their crimes on Meadow.

We went inside the ship, and it did not look that bad. Some contents had shifted and moved around some, and a few cabinets had tipped over. This was consistent with sudden deceleration, perhaps into a swamp.

There was no power or life support. With a little work we got battery power online, and noted that every single interior door was open, as had been both exterior airlocks.

We proceeded to the bridge, where the scanner told us the corpses were, and immediately found two children and two adults, apparently a family. A tiny bit more searching revealed two more Vulcan adults at consoles on the bridge. We found a meal prepared, spoiled, but not as spoiled as we would have expected given the circumstances.

Dr. Mannheim examined the corpses and said they had been dead almost a year, consistent with the Meadow Plague theory. Then, however, he looked surprised, and told us that they had died of vacuum exposure.

That was interesting. Was this suicide? A decision to not contaminate others? But the ship had been carefully aimed at a Federation world, implying that there was evidence here that the dead Vulcans had wanted friendly people to find.

We searched the logs, which were extraordinarily mundane. The last one was the Captain, on 7309.25: "This is the Experience leaving Meadow. We are setting course for Satterfeld."

I asked Weyer to go through the ship activity logs to determine when the course was changed from Satterfeld to Pluuh, given that the ship, full of dead people, had crash-landed on Pluuh, and went nowhere near Satterfeld.

Just then a Mysterious Cylinder Robot appeared on the stairs.

It was not messing around. It zipped past us and attacked with an energy weapon. I dodged, Weyer leapt out of his chair and avoided injury, but Mannheim took a hit and went down immediately. He had a very nasty burn, but was alive. I shot the robot in its its sensor cone, and got quite a good hit. It missed when it returns fire and stuttered at bit; I shot it in the sensor cone again and appeared to disable the cone.

It had certainly taken quite some damage. It missed both Weyer and me; Larsen missed a shot at it, and I targeted its weapons band, but missed. It got off an accurate shot at me but I managed to dodge out of the way. Both I and Weyer hit it with our next shots to little effect. Weyer ducked behind a console to try to turn his phaser into an EMP grenade, like he did in our previous encounter with these things.

Larsen charged out from cover and emptied a ten-round burst into the robot, getting five hits, which, while impressive, was completely ineffective; not a one of them got through the robot's armor.

That, however, gave me an idea. I had a rifle capable of ten-round bursts as well. I got seven hits, and the phaser rifle was powerful enough that at least some of those got through the robot's armor. It crashed to the ground, sparking, some of its lights flickering. It was at least temporarily incapacitated, but I had no intention of letting it teleport away. I emptied another ten rounds into it, which seemed to render it totally inert. I called the ship and had them break their geosynchronous orbit to get over our position and beam the wounded doctor and the incapacitated robot out. I gave orders that the robot be taken with a heavily armed guard to engineering until a robotics expert could confirm that it was indeed most sincerely dead. At that point, I want it taken apart so we can determine whether it was made by any known race or whether any of its components have known identifying markings.

Once the smoke had cleared on board the Experience, Weyer went through the activity logs. On 7309.25, just hours after launch, there was a security override and all interior cabin doors were opened. There was no evidence of message receipt. I ordered a chemical scan of their comms systems, and we did indeed find antenna crystal residue in their comms systems. We took the contaminated board as evidence.

We now had most of a narrative that made sense: BioResearch and/or Wthlian Life and Casualty was in a position to sabotage the communications of every ship that docked at either Comstock or Meadow (at least) and performed maintenance. Just as Lom's fabricator was destroyed by a command delivered by not-subspace FTL that has something to do with the Comstock Crystal, this ship had been ordered to open all bulkheads and vent itself to space. I further suspected that this had been the fate of all civilian Vulcan vessels leaving Comstock, but of course we did not yet have evidence for that.

However, that theory has one gaping hole in it: why did this ship crash on Pluuh II? Its destination was changed just seconds after the ship was exposed to vacuum, and we found no command pathway from the consoles (I had initially suspected that one of the crewmen at the consoles had realized what was happening and managed to reset the course before losing consciousness and dying, but the doctor said that was impossible, and the consoles did not seem to have been used to retarget the ship).

If BioResearch had had the ship sabotaged—as seemed extremely likely—then literally almost any other heading would have been better: had they just pointed the ship off into the void, it never would have been found by anyone. Perhaps there was a scam to collect it for salvage on the target world, but again, surely there would have been better choices than a destination actually in Federation space, and anyway, on the scale of BioResearch and the cover-up of a planetary genocide, the salvage value of a civilian spacecraft surely could not have been worth the risk.

And why the teleporting mystery robots? What do they have to do with all of this? Unknown teleportation technology is certainly suggestive of some alternative FTL communication method such as we suspect the Comstock Crystal allows. But are the robots BioResearch? Are they autonomous? The fact that we found them stealing low-value ore sort of suggests the latter: BioResearch has better things to do with its time and money than steal a few hundred kilocredits of ore, or a civilian ship (such as, for instance, covering up the genocide of an entire planet's population of peaceful Vulcans). We clearly do not yet have all the puzzle pieces.

We planned to scan the robot for antenna residue as well, to see if we could establish some connection there, and I asked that Captain Ch'zathri contact the governor to find out how we could implement a funeral service for these Vulcans in such a way that it would both be acceptable within Vulcan culture and not run afoul of any of Pluuh's ecological regulations. The Captain will decide how much, and what, to tell the governor about our findings here. It seems likely that Pluuh's leadership has somehow been suborned, so it may be best to stick with the bare facts: this ship left Meadow nearly a year ago and crashed here. The crew had been dead some time by that point and were not killed in the crash. There is no evidence of biological contamination. The crew ought to be respectfully buried (or immolated, or whatever custom dictates).

I feel that if we can determine who (if anyone besides themselves) is behind the mystery robots, and why the Experience diverted to Pluuh, we will be much closer to cracking this case.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7407.30 : Pluuh II, UFP near The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7407.29

The doctor confirmed what we had inferred from the crash: the Vulcans were two families, each with one child, one group light-skinned, one group dark-skinned.

There had been other robot sightings on Pluuh II, and Captain Ch'zathri talked to Governor Lurb while we were investigating the crash. Lurb instructed his assistant Rhonda to put us in touch with Gene Pruitt at Cliff Foods, a Vulcan-owned Puff Dust processing facility—Gene was the person who got shot by a spherical robot. Puff Dust is some kind of fungal-derived substance used in sterilite, a medical applications.

Ch'zathri asked how we could repay the Governor's kindness, and he asked us to buy quite a lot of truffles at fair market value, which turns out to be quite a lot.

Back aboard the ship, our robotics experts were essentially Weyer and Ch'zathri, with Larsen available for general scientific guidance. The robot indeed seemed completely inert. Even a cursory scan indicated significant quantities of the Comstock Antenna Material: not just residue that has infiltrated a chip, but some bulk material.

This robot could spend time (and has spent time) in hard vacuum, as was evident from pitting, cosmic ray damage, and so on. It also contains corboryte in large fractions in its shell. Corboryte is used to produce thermally insensitive starship hulls. A little research found a press release: L. Worthington had said that they had started Corobyte Production on a Newlin II moon. They are advertising for heavy construction workers on that moon, and have been continuously advertising since.

Stardate 7106.13

Lancelot Worthington III, Chairman of BioResearch Corporations Triangle Division, announced today at his division headquarters that BioResearch has begun production of Corboryte on the surface of moon L-23 on Newlin II. This uninhabited moon is rech in the rare metal needed to produce thermally insensitive star transport vessels. The difficulty of mining the metal has been partially solved, it was revealed, by the introduction of sophisticated new excavation equipment developed by BioResearch. The mining operations will still require a significant labor force, and BioResearch is accepting applications from qualified mining personnel for the positions. Worthington said he will spare no expense for the best equipment and the best personnel for the job.

This appears to be the job that Lom's buddy went for.

Larsen suggested that perhaps BioResearch was selling corboryte to Romulans in order to let them make drones, like this one, that would let them spy throughout the Triangle and beyond (since we are currently in Federation Space, after all).

Captain Ch'zathri cracked open the robot. We found a concentration of Comstock Antenna Material where one would expect the main computer core to be. It's pretty caramelized, and we can tell that the material could be used to channel charges and hold voltages, so it's a reasonable guess that the antenna crystal is some kind of reprogrammable matrix for general-purpose computations. An inorganic brain, if you will.

There were no textual or symbolic identifications on any of the components, but nevertheless, the functional systems were obvious. Was this robot autonomous? Its overall power source is not obvious. There are small batteries and capacitors providing subsystem power, but we did not find much of a hint of how the system power is taken in.

I was, by now, leaning towards an independent, possibly sentient, race of robots.

We brought in Talia Solari, an engineer with surprisingly beautiful teeth, to take a look. "This isn't Federation. Where did it come from?" We answered that we were hoping she could tell us.

"I've not seen anything like this. Definitely not Klingon." Not impossible it's Romulan, but if it is Romulan it's very new. It definitely does not correspond to any of the Big Three's (known) specs, in terms of voltage, physical spacing of components, et cetera. That in turn means it's not designed for interoperability or marketing to the three major Federation races.

There is no evidence of Romulan cloaking technology anywhere in the robot. Captain Ch'zathri pressed his hypothesis about Phase Shifting. Could this robot be capable of just going into subspace? Is that what the antenna (and CPU) are about? We know that the crystal is somehow associated with at least FTL communication, and possibly travel, so that seems plausible.

Moving mass through subspace is impossible for the Federation. But…what about inorganic beings? Maybe they could use a stasis bubble? The rest of the robot looked like Federation-equivalent design; not much higher, or lower, tech than we use. However, the whole CPU/memory just seems to be Comstock Antenna Material and probably the equivalent of an FPGA: field-reconfigurable computing substrate.

I recommended that we incinerate the robot, and just in case, have the chaplain say a prayer for its soul, if any. I have an uncomfortable feeling that these things might be people, and if so, I am unhappy that I just killed one. It was certainly trying to kill us, so it's not as if our response was in any way unwarranted…but if these are sentient creatures, I would prefer to overcome them without killing them.

The Captain gave Cliff Foods a call, speaking to an Andorian woman named Oviva; Captain Ch'zathri asked to speak to the business owner about Mr. Pruitt, and Oviva asked us to give her a few minutes.

True to her word, Oviva called back quite soon and T'Prath invited us to beam down and meet with her immediately. We arrived and met them. They both appeared to be in their early 30s.

Captain Ch'zathri said that Lurb had said we should speak to Gene Pruitt about his encounter with the robot, and were told that he was a young human, might embellish his story, but that he was a good kid.

I asked T'Prath if she, as presumably a leader of the local Vulcan business community, would be willing to look into the dead Vulcans and appropriate rites; I gave her the identification of the ship and of the bodies we had found. She agreed to find out what she could.

Gene showed up and I tried to put him at ease. He was indeed quite young, probably mid-to-late teens. "I was in a processing area, and out of the corner of my eye I saw this sphere floating there. Just sitting there. I got a scanner and scanned it, and then it started glowing in a spot and then it shot me. It hurt, and I ran away, and we have some weapons, and I got one and started shooting and it poofed out."

I thanked him for his honest (and very consistent) testimony and told him I would be a reference, to the limited extent I could based on our brief encounter, if he wanted a Starfleet job in the future. If nothing else I hope he gets a little pleasure at the look on someone's face when he's applying for a minimum-wage job and cites a Starfleet Commander as a job reference. We went back to our ship.

Stardate 7407.30

T'Prath called us back in a bit. "I have found some close relatives. They have asked for keepsakes. If possible, one per family member." We went to the crashed ship, searched, found appropriate keepsakes, and delivered them to T'Prath. Then we had the bodies cremated according to the desires of their families.

We decided, based on Lom's worry about his friend and the corboryte shielding in the robot, to make the mining moon of Newlin II our next port of call. The journey would take roughly two months.

Stardate 7408.05

I got a message from Herbert. He got to Lakeland, replaced the fab chip, and talked to Hernandez. Comms may or may not be secure (we're using an encryption key, but we also have to assume that the subspace network is thoroughly monitored), but that's OK. If this is eavesdropped, it will make our adversaries sweat.

Alpha Shift: we detected something on lateral navigation sensors, ahead, emitting subspace emanations. The Captain brought us within a couple megameters, and we determined this object was a Cosmic String, which is totally different from a Quantum Filament. It is basically a one-dimensional singularity, roughly 200km long, and about 0.5% solar mass. Thus, black-hole density, but linear rather than pointlike.

The Captain wondered about the answer to the age-old question one always wants to ask about anomalous objects found in space: what happens if we hit it with a particle beam? The answer, alas, was that firing into it did basically nothing. To be fair, that's about what one would expect with something the mass of a small star that is already singularity-dense: there's not much we can do to it to change its state in any meaningful way.

Stardate 7409.09

Yolanda Lee asked to meet with me. "I was wondering what you thought of my performance so far." She seemed quite insecure about whether she was discharging her duty adequately. I assured her, "Exemplary. Compliments, no complaints."

Clearly the counselor needed someone to talk to sometimes. I offered her my shoulder to cry on if necessary, with a warning that I am better understood as a cautionary tale than as a role model. She seemed somehow to feel better after that.

We did a little more investigation of the work situation on Newlin II's mining moon. BioResearch has been going on recruiting drives every 150 days, the pay is good, and they don't do background checks. The corboryte production is profitable, but the amount produced is not vastly increasing. That in turn implies high turnover, so probably the job is dangerous or otherwise induces people to leave. Having my suspicions about BioResearch, I did not have a good feeling about Lom's friend's continued health and safety.

Stardate 7409.15

We heard that DANA was now in full production at Meadow, and has been for two months. BioResearch is presumably very pleased with itself, having brought a new and profitable facility online and only having had to murder a few hundred thousand Vulcans to do so.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7410.27 : L-23, a moon of Newlin II, near UFP and Romulan borders : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7409.10 - Enroute: Pluuh II to Newlin System

Tollen Gratian, who handed over his cloaking device in exchange for being let go after being caught snooping around on a Phylosian ship, had been on Gibraltar. We heard he was on Jemison, apparently minding his own business and trading peacefully. I made a little 20 Cr bet with Weyer, who took the over on 90 days for him to get in trouble.

7409.20

I got a report of multiple reports of ships with dead or no crewmen entering various systems. Of the ones I was able to get local data on, the majority (but not all) had been registered on Meadow. None came from Federation Space—all points of origin appear to have been within the Triangle.

Could the Comstock Crystal be some kind of beacon for the robots, and this is opportunistic piracy by them? But they didn't seem to steal anything from the ship on Pluuh, nor had they leached metal from it.

7409.21

During Alpha shift, with Larsen at Science, we detected high incidences of X-rays and energy particles. Not threat-level, but interesting. There was a small quasar nearby. An unknown black hole would warrant further analysis and leaving a warning beacon. On arrival, we found a starship there already. It appeared to be an Orion design: B-6 Lightning Class. Could this be a pirate haven?

We did not yet seem to have been actively scanned, so Captain Ch'Zathri ordered us to drop out of warp and engage the cloak. Ker-CHUNK!

We went to Yellow Alert. Larsen pulled off some wizardry with a passive sensor scan, and we could tell that there were chunks of a sizeable spaceship within the accretion disk, or possibly wreckage of several smaller ships. There were also roughly a half-dozen single-person vessels investigating the detritus field. These were not warp-capable, so our inference was that they were salvagers sent out from the Orion vessel. The wrecked ship was apparently Romulan.

This black hole was never charted, and it was too light to be a naturally-forming black hole, well under 1 solar mass. It could be a primordial black hole, but since it's never been charted, it seemed more likely to be artificial. Romulan ships are known to be powered by singularities, and the black hole is surrounded by Romulan wreckage. The Captain gave Lt. Seurat the conn, and the usual team prepared to go investigate, along with Ensign Setok.

In fact the black hole turned out to be only 0.0004 solar mass. That is roughly earth mass, which is of course still huge compared to a starship mass. Neither is it so small that it could not be a primordial black hole (any such object Luna mass or less would have evaporated away via Hawking Radiation by now). A whole sealed container drifted by. We debated beaming it aboard or putting it under tractor field and dragging it back to the ship. Since it was quite light (kg rather than tons), I locked on with a tractor beam and we hauled it back to the Odyssey.

The container weighed 126 lbs and was approximately 5' x 4' x 3'. It could be a full coffin for a small, squat person. We took it down to the engineering lab, and I opened it with little difficulty. It had been sealed prior to opening; we could hear the pressure equalize when it was opened. Inside we found some kind of computer technology, but no trace of Comstock Antenna material. It was digital memory storage of some kind, with Romulan glyphs like you'd expect on a circuit board, identifying resistors and capacitors and such.

We asked Weyer to take a look at it. It turned out that this was likely part of the core control system, which when disconnected, triggered (or failed to suppress) a core collapse in the singularity powering the ship.

This gave me an idea: could we reverse-engineer the system and write a payload that when introduced could disable the collapse-suppression subsystem? Weyer wasn't sure, but that seemed to me like it could be a really useful tool in an anti-Romulan arsenal.

We left soon afterward, after ascertaining that the Orion ship's name is "Anarchy." It might as well have been flying the Jolly Roger.

7410.03

We learned that "Joe Moore" and his family were found dead not too far from his Witness Protection Program relocation homeworld. The unpleasant and very public method of their deaths was clearly consistent with Orion discouragement of squealing.

7410.19 - Newlin System

We arrived at the Newlin system and checked in at Newlin IV, and we said that we wanted to investigate Newlin II, but also needed to report our findings about IKS pirates to Newlin III. The Queen, Bethlin jav Frarn, would need to authorize us to visit Newlin II.

We went to go visit her and talk to the Prime Minister, Verg glov Jallirs, about Klingon Pirates and so forth. We asked permission to visit Newlin II. The Queen did not react at all. The PM whispered something to her immediately and she told us that the world was off limits.

Here my cultural familiarity with Tellarites paid off: I told a pretty juicy fart joke, and that succeeded in getting us permission to visit. The queen appreciated that kiss up and I made her laugh, and the PM seemed distracted; he was ready for us to be gone and had something else on his mind. I cheerily told the queen, "Smell ya later!" and we were on our way.

Newlin II was a gas giant, and the mining happened on its moon L-23. That moon is the only large one with a breathable atmosphere, and is M-class, with about half Earth gravity. Lom's buddy Ben Tolland was supposed to be on L-23. We had heard BioResearch will hire anyone for this work, so we decided we'd try to get into their computer systems and verify the employment status of Mr. Tolland.

We go into orbit cloaked. The Captain ordered: "Mr. Weyer, do your magic." Alas, that's more than we could do from orbit. The planet clearly had sensor suites; cloaking had been a good idea. We decided to do a passive scan and map the place, getting images of population centers and major mines. That took 8 whole days!

We found about half a dozen exhausted mines, underground, with matching slag piles aboveground, but only one active region. It seemed that miners were just processing the ore: we never saw anyone going into or out of a mine. It all looked unskilled. We also found a smallish dome, 15 yards across; at the top in the center, there was a spot reminiscent of the Comstock antenna, but smaller. That, unsurprisingly, was the administration building. We noted about 40 miners working; there were 4 more months until the next recruitment drive.

We left orbit, uncloaked, and came back.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7410.28 : L-23, a moon of Newlin II, near UFP and Romulan borders : USS Odyssey

We left orbit, uncloaked, and came back.

An Andorian male, Oshahr Th'vylneth, hailed us. Captain Ch'Zathri said he had the names of six people he'd like to interview for an ongoing investigation and handed over the list.

20 minutes later, we were told five of the six were available, but not Mr. Tolland. But…five for five! Tolland arrived 7603.08, worked about 6 months, and elected not to renew. He had no disciplinary record, and we were told that most people work one contract term and leave. I told Oshahr that ours was an investigation about resource extraction and diversion of resources (technically true!) and I can't tell him more.

Our first interviewee was Randall Baker, human male, in his late teens, a big guy. When they got to the site, the ore was already there, aboveground, ready to process. The miners don't know how it was extracted and they are uncomfortable talking about it. One of the first-termers planned to sign up for a second contract term. The two-termer we talked to is done and is going to leave after this contract is up. So far, this was actually consistent with the BioResearch statements, and it did not look like they are mulching employees after their terms are up (slightly to my surprise).

The miners generally stay exhausted enough to not get into much trouble.

I asked Oshahr if it was safe to presume that the ore extraction is fully automated and their proprietary process. He urged me to leave the system, and was pretty rude about it. So, on our way out, just to annoy him, we performed a deep, obvious active scan of the mine, and then went over to the administration facility to do a scan of the antenna.

The mine appeared to be a natural cave system made by a burrowing animal. This animal, whatever it would have been, must have been big and strong. There were no power sources down in the mine; indeed, no high-tech anything. The tunnels looked random, not particularly following corboryte veins.

Then we overflew the dome, and did an active scan, in part to detect whether they were sending anything with their Comstock Antenna, but mostly as an extended middle finger for their hospitality.

As soon as we scanned, the same Mystery Ship we met above Gibraltar appeared. We went to Red Alert and raised shields.

We knew from our prior experience that the mystery starship did not have conventional shields—rather their ship could absorb and recover energy from beam weapon strikes. Thus it was probably a better idea to use photon torpedos instead.

They hit our shields, which absorbed the blast pretty handily. We acquired a target lock. It was fairly evident where their power plant was, so I aimed for it, but missed.

The mystery ship shot at us with a strange sort of beam. Probably a tractor/repulsor beam; some kind of graviton-based device, we thought? Fortunately they missed. I gave orders to bring another torpedo online, and we decided to try the particle beam next while readying the photon torpedo. Perhaps their energy absorption only worked against EM radiation.

The scan revealed that the mystery ship had two habitat stations in center, good but not spectacular armor. "Habitat stations" was perhaps a misnomer: no space inside their ship looked like a bedroom or living quarters. We could identify a weapons system and a fusion reactor powerplant (fusion! not even antimatter!). There was a mysterious (but large) power distribution system, and we also found the control room. I targetted that with the particle beam; the energy is absorbed. We concluded that our phasers and our particle beams were useless, and that if the photon torpedo didn't work, we had nothing to fight them with.

The mystery ship's fire was on target; our shields took it.

The back end of the ship was some kind of strange computer bank thing, and a large and tempting target. I hit it very solidly with a photon torpedo, and at least the ship took quite a lot of obvious, visible damage. However, even a direct photon torpedo hit wasn't enough to cripple it.

The opposing ship vanished; as with our prior experience with these robots, they left no evidence of any sort of radiation or particle trail.

I asked Lt. Cmdr. Weyer to scan the dome. The dome antenna was gone, leaving just a hole in the top of the dome. I resisted the urge to radio the mining director to tell him he ought to fix his roof.

Captain Ch'Zathri determined that the robots and the ships were likely from the Andromeda Galaxy.

Whatever FTL travel technology they use…well, if they're not here to stay, there's nothing we can do about it. Perhaps the Andromedans are robots?

At any rate, except for their super-science FTL, and their graviton-based tractor/repulsor beam, they seemed, on the whole, less advanced than the Kraken.

The Captain speculated that gravity technology might be the principle behind their general tech, as antimatter is that of the UFP.

Therefore…perhaps he will be able to reverse-engineer their transportation technology based on those principles. If he can do that, then it would take some further invention to get a (particle-beam-driven, naturally) weapon designed to overload their energy absorption technology. That technology, Ch'zathri determined from the scan, is heavily corborite-based, which at least makes the interest of the Andromedans (tentatively so-called) in Newlin II's moon clear.

After the dust had settled and we determined that no one had been hurt and the ship had not taken serious damage, we scanned an inactive mine looking for, basically, Umber Hulk Scat.

The prime suspect for the mine-digger is a Vulugan, which is a hexapod even-bigger Komodo Dragon, 16-23 feet long. This one had been feeding on people. Well, so much for my theory that people really did just leave when they've had enough.

I suspect that if we can find the mine that went dry just after Ben Tollend finished his tour, we will find his belt buckle in a pile of lizard poop.

This is classic BioResearch at work, doing what it does best.

We realized that the admin dome was empty, even though it had held an officious corporate tool a mere few hours ago. It was clearly time to beam down.

Inside, we found an empty cryotube support. The control panel appeared to have been irradiating the operator, to an unhealthy degree for an Andorian or Human operator. The computers had all been hastily wiped. The radiation peaked in the infrared and X-ray.

We got inside the dome's central core to find a hole the size of the hole in the roof, and traces of Comstock Antenna Residue. This was very much as if a crystal (similar to the Comstock Antenna, but smaller) had been removed. We found that the sensors from the first room were monitoring the levels of residue, but the levels of whatever was in the cryochamber. It's still not clear if there is a direct relationship between the crystal material and corborite; I should find a geologist or metallurgist onboard and see what they can determine.

We then made the decision to go to the active (until five minutes previously) mine and check whether the miners were still alive. Given the way BioResearch operates I'm half-expecting to find them all murdered or missing.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7410.28-31 : L-23, moon of Newlin II, The Triangle near UFP and Romulan borders : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7410.28

So what was in the cryotube, being fed some nutrients and bathed in EM radiation (IR and X-Ray)? That did not fit what little we knew of the Andromedans.

We went to check on the miners.

Captain Ch'zathri wanted to work for a while to reverse-engineer the Andromedan tech. So he split bridge duty, with me, and while I'm commanding, first we went looking for the miners. They were fine and toiling away.

Stardate 7410.29

In less than a day we found Vulugans chewing away: four large biosigns and tunnels. I argued for Disintegrate-C: these poor things won't make it long without a food supply, and they are clearly not sentient. I was corrected: like snakes, they can go a while (weeks or even months) between meals. We realized there wasn't much point in fighting large, mean, anthropagic lizards.

I decided instead to ask the miners if there was anyone who would know where the mine 18 months ago had been. I started with the Tellarite woman who had been on her second tour, Blaosind glasch Dvarc. She called over Kitt, a Vulcan, and apparently the accepted leader of the miners. I repeated that the administrator seemed to be missing, so if they don't have a new boss in a few weeks, they should call Newlin III and ask for help. Kitt introduced me to Maigun, an Orion, who was the miner of longest service.

I bribed him with a bottle of Andorrian brandy, which he bargained up to Romulan Ale. He introduced us to a young Hispanic guy, Michael Sanchez, also a three-termer. Tollund was on one of the first teams to come out. He didn't know where exactly the mines were, but they had tended to proceed to the west, so we should head east.

The miners' food drop was to be the next day; they had no reserve, so if the food did not arrive by the following day, we would need to run an evacuation or at least give them a lot of food.

We decided to look look for the played-out mines.

We found a mine quite near the admin building; we skipped the first two mines, on the grounds that Tollund had clearly been alive to work those mines. At the third mine we began searching for lizard scat with belt buckles and stuff in it. We quickly found human (and other sentient-race) remains and bits of metal, but nothing personally identifiable, although there were obvious bits of jewelry. This cave contained the remains of about 35 humans...that is, probably all of the people who didn't sign up for the next tour.

We tried the next mine, and got lucky and found a locket. Although the picture within was gone, it had some readable text in Orion: "All my love, Jeegaa".

I was, by this point, completely convinced that BioResearch has been straight-up feeding departing miners to the Vulugans. We did some more searching, and ended up with eight names from jewelry found in the lizard poo: four Andorrians, a Tellarite, and two humans.

One of them was Justin Sanchez; we were talking to Michael Sanchez earlier, so I was hopeful that Michael was a relative.

This prompted the question of why BioResearch is so cartoonishly evil. Surely Vulugan Chow isn't THAT expensive. And surely just paying these guys off and letting them go do their things would be vastly cheaper than the consequences if their villany was ever exposed. It's not like six months of good wages for forty miners is even much of an expense for BioResearch.

Back at the mining camp, we determined that Justin Sanchez had been Michael's younger brother. He was speechless, of course. I offered my condolences, and a mind-meld to Kitt if he wanted to ascertain my sincerity that I believed that BioResearch was at fault in his brother's death. He did not take me up on the offer.

We then decided to take the miners onboard; we can truthfully state that it's plausible that the unknown aliens vaporized the BioResearch administrator, that no food will ever be coming, and so we need to offer shelter to the miners.

Ch'zathri tried to get the attention of a Tri-Vid reporter to proclaim that we had rescued these miners and the unknown ship had done something nefarious with the BioResearch administrator, etc. He failed to get an enthusiastic response.

There was some argument about whether to preemptively pay the miners, et cetera, and I argued for giving the miners some legal contacts to help them sue for their back pay if BioResearch claims they didn't fulfil their contract, since…the food didn't show up; it wasn't the miners that breached the contract first.

Kitt sent a subspace message, using our communicator, to Comstock, explaining the situation and asking for instructions. A reply was expected to take a couple of days.

We decided to go to Newlin III, wait for a reply, and if none was forthcoming, rent rooms for these miners for a month and give them each enough money for a ticket to somewhere else. However, we got a message from Lance Worthington III himself (!) for Kitt. He was very apologetic and stated he will be working with the queen to make sure they're reunited, et cetera. Anyone who wanted to take their prorated pay and leave was welcome to.

We prepared to depart, but before we left, I reiterated my suspicions about BioResearch to Sanchez, and gave him the names of the other seven people we'd found among chewed personal effects, in case he knew anyone connected to those people, and I made sure that he had my personal contact information and that he knew he was welcome to contact me if he found anything suspicious. It is my hope that Sanchez will live long enough to spread the word that BioResearch cannot be trusted.

Then we set course for Jemison.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7411.01-7501.04 : near Newlin II - Jemison : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7411.01

Research on the missing miners got us a hit on Vamit Zh'shosriq. We found a family on Lakeland in the region with that last name, and there's contact information for—if it's the right person—her father. Lt. Cmdr. Weyer decided to make contact, and if it is the right person, send condolences.

Captain Ch'Zathri, meanwhile, came up with a prototype for an anti-Andromedan weapon based on the particle beam.

Zh'shosriq confirmed that that was his daughter and was now worried. Weyer wisely consulted Lt. Yolanda Lee about how to break the news.

Stardate 7411.08

We arrived at the nearby subspace relay. We investigated whether there were any messages from the administrator, or any antenna residue. No residue; there was communication from the transport ship each six months, and farewell messages from miners going on-planet. There were no messages at all from miners ending their tours.

We constructed a timeline. Meadow looked like the first super-shady thing. First contact with the robots was 7309.04, shortly before the virus started killing Meadow's population, which was 7309.24. the virus on Meadow: 7309.24. Lt. Cmdr. Weyer suggested that the BioResearch command structure got changeling'ed by Andromedans shortly before then. That's…an intriguing theory. I'm not sure how we'd detect it, but that could also explain the administrator's disappearance on the moon of Newlin II.

Stardate 7411.17

We received a message from Lom stating that since we weren't going to, he was going to Newlin to search for his friend. I replied that his friend was probably dead and he should watch his step and his back if he goes to Newlin II.

Stardate 7411.30

News from Baker's Dozen: Paxton III and IV were now in open war with Klingon and Romulan-supplied weapons. This goes way, way beyond their usual hostilies. Perhaps we're seeing a Klingon/Romulan proxy war, as the United States and the Soviet Union waged in the second half of the 20th century?

Stardate 7412.02

We heard a rumor that BioResearch has an anti-cloaking device for sale under the table. We should investigate that. I wonder if that's what the former prisoner of the Romulans had been working on.

We determined that the Andromedan ship was chock-full of Comstock Antenna material. The recorded graviton emissions seemed to be the ship leaving something behind, not an effect of its blinking out. Maybe they use some kind of wormhole technology?

Stardate 7412.09

Regarding a new weapon to deal with the Andromedans, the particle beam conversion proved to be flawed. The deflector dish was incapable of delivering enough power over time. Captain Ch'Zathri needed to redesign the system.

Stardate 7412.15

After a few days' work, Captain Ch'Zathri unveiled his new prototype, powered by a converted photon torpedo instead. That's a lot more power, granted, although it does eat into our capacity for a weapons system we actually want to use.

Stardate 7501.03

We arrived at Jemison. We were not hailed. We quickly found that all sales go through Jean Carislon. It had been a long voyage, so we declared Shore Leave and a six-bloody-mary brunch. We found a place with a broad mix of people: a Vulcan waitress; at another table, a human, an Andorian, and an Orion sitting. At another one: a single Klingon. At a third: a Vulcan, a Tellarite, and a human.

Captain Ch'Zathri approached the Klingon and had the following conversation:

"Are you traders?" "My friends and I are on shore leave. I am Captain Ch'Zathri of the USS Odyssey. I am pleased to meet you." "What brings Starfleet to this little mining world?" "Fact-finding kind of mission, nothing militaristic; we're visiting most of the non-forbidden areas of the Triangle." "Not sure how interesting you'll find Jemison; plenty of Klingons."

The Klingon was a prospector, as is almost everyone here except for the Goldport support staff.

"If you've got any information…" "Well, what are you interested in?" "Well, we will be passing between IKS and Romulan space; what can I expect?" "How will I be compensated?" "Mining equipment, ship maintenance parts…you want to join us for drinks in a bit more darkness and privacy?" We learned the Klingon's name: Agr'on.

He's not big for a Klingon, say 180cm (6') or so. I eventually introduced myself, in Klingon, using the salutations one would use to an equal. He responded appropriately. We bought drinks in to-go cups for him and us. He had never travelled through that corridor, and he did not think anyone routinely does.

We sent some help to his prospecting team and found it to be a one-man operation. Agr'on's MO was to find a claim and then to sell it, rather than to do the extraction himself.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7501.04-05 : Jemison : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7501.04

As we left the diner with Agr'on, we were pretty sure we were being shadowed by an extremely short Andorian—maybe 5'6" to the top of his antennae.

From beind us: "Gentlemen?" "Things can be pretty rough in these parts. If you need weapons I can provide them at a reasonable price." "Personal or … more serious?" "I have access to both." "That's more interesting."

The guy is scabby. Herpes? Meth? Doesn't look pleasant in any event. We discussed upgrading the shuttlecraft; three people with sidearms approached from the east, with their hands on their sidearms. "Friends of yours?" we asked Scabby McMetherson. His eyes got big. A Tellarite, a female Andorian, and a young Klingon approached. The Andorian was clearly terrified. The three newcomers were all dressed similarly. Ch'zathri said to the Andorian woman, in Andorian, "My dear, you keep the ugliest company."

The crew was giving the Andorian the hairy eyeball, and ignoring us. The woman looked amused. Broni introduce, himself. Scabby McMetherson started to run, the two men drew, and the Andorian woman held her hands out like "don't worry about it." They holstered their weapons.

"I am Ejhynaoth Sh'kikrass."

"I'm surprised he's worth wasting the disruptor charge on."

"Weapons dealing is a dangerous occupation. I didn't want to see you make a mistake. If you want weapons, you should be dealing with Luxury Apparel." I put my head in my hands and say "Now where am I going to buy my lacy underthings?" She said reassuringly, "we deal in all sorts of accessories" and handed us a card. She confirmed that Carislon has blessed her endeavor and has not blessed Scabby McMetherson.

Captain Ch'zathri asked about cloaking and … anti-cloaking devices. They did not have one and were convinced it actually exists, although they've heard the same rumors we have. Disruptors, on the other hand, are cheap, effective, and easy to maintain, if not terifically versatile. They pointed out there would be an extra charge for installation. Captain Ch'zathri wanted to install it himself and they told us they could have it ready in 14 hours.

We did our stuff with Agr'on, and then got the Vulcan shuttle ready to fly down to pick up the disruptor.

Stardate 7401.05

Broni asked Ejhhynaoath out to dinner. "That's a nice shuttle." "Yeah, it wasn't in such great shape when we acquired it, but we've done some work." "The Vulcans make great stuff." "I'm hesitant to heap praise on them, but, yeah, it's nice engineering." She and Ch'zathri beamed out for their brunch date. I later found out that she hadn't been with Luxury Apparel long; Ch'zathri tried to imply he led a crew of smugglers wanting to work near Romulan space. Jean Carislon takes a cut of everything on this planet.

"I imagine cloaking devices are not easy to come by." "No, but not impossible…"

The Klingon kid left behind to help us get the weapons system installed was, in fact no help. He had filed-to-points teeth and mostly just preened in a mirror and tried to look badass while we got the weapon system installed, which we did.

Back in orbit, just as we got underway, a large Orion pirate vessel appeared on an intercept course, their weapons hot. They fired, and missed. I fired back with phasers and hit, punching through their shields and slightly damaging their weapons systems. Their disruptor hit our shields but did not penetrate. I fired again, and hit again, punching once again through their shields, but stopped by their armor. They missed us, and I hit them again, once more stopped by their armor. I was feeling pretty good about my gunnery at this point.

They missed, and once again, a hit, through their shields, soaked by their armor. They hit us, weakening but not penetrating our shields. I scored another good shot, once again through their shields and this time their armor too; one more hit to the weapons systems and at this point one of their forward-facing weapons had been disabled.

We dodged their next shot. Captain Ch'zathri ordered a torpedo loaded, and I missed with phasers. Their shot was wide. I fired the photon torpedo at the weak spot in their armor, accurately, but sadly they dodged. The Orion ship then attempted to disenage. I took a phaser shot at one of their warp nacelles. Another very palpable hit, and that nacelle was destroyed. The Orion ship messily made it to warp. The Captain elected not to pursue. As our shields were never breached, we suffered no actual damage.

Then we were on our way to Garnon.

The disruptor proved its worth against a hapless asteroid. It seems to be in excellent shape and to be worth what we paid for it. well.

Time passed. We did a little research about Luxury Apparel. It has been on the scene about 4 years, and is ubiquitous throughout the Triangle. R'Thiana (a Romulan) is the owner.

The rest of our journey was uneventful.

7502.06 We arrived at Garnon, the planet of bad kerning. It's mostly human, some Tellarite. Excitingly, it has a Mad Emperor. This should be fun.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7502.07 : Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7502.06

We arrived at Garnon.

We noticed something strange on sensors; some kind of cloud.

Lt. Larsen analyzed it and pointed out that we saw this around Schneiter: not Comstock Antenna material but a match for Andromedan material. We used the Bussard collectors to successfully collect some.

Garnon is not exactly a pleasure planet but a work-hard, play-hard kind of planet, and an extremely populous (twenty billion!) one at that. Of course a planet this large would have a BioResearch presence, and indeed we found that Cavology, a manufacturer of cryobeds (and medical beds generally) had been recently acquired on Garnon by BioResearch.

The changeling theory (and maybe the theory that that the "cloud" is nanobots that are the "real" Andromedans, who can form bodies at will; we already know that conquest is what Andromedans view as the only form of cultural expansion) would explain a lot of the horror we've uncovered in recent months (now years!), if BioResearch has been changelinged at the very top.

Pursuing that line of thought…that headache Topi got…what if something about the Andromedans makes life uncomfortable for psychics? We could investigate this, working with the theory that the BioResearch upper management has been replaced by Andromedans. If we can get a meeting with the BioResearch planetary directory, we could perhaps covertly scan that individual and see whether there's anything we can observe that differs from presenting-race baseline.

According to public records, the former CEO of the cryobed manufacturing is Vuck, a Vulcan, and is still in charge of the division. We, of course, were suspicious: anyone on Garnon who appeared to be Vulcan could equally well be Romulan (although, given that Luxury Apparel is operating quite openly with a Romulan in charge, it's not at all obvious that such a ruse would be useful, let alone necessary), and if our suspicions about BioResearch are correct, an Andromedan instead.

Given that we were quite obvious on Jemison about outfitting a Vulcan-built shuttle of murky provenance with a disruptor, it would not be at all unreasonable for the same crew of Completely Legitimate Merchants to want a medical bed for that same shuttle.

Thus, we headed down in the Vulcan shuttle, to the Cavology headquarters and factory.

When we arrived we found that it looked deserted. Larsen scanned for Comstock/Andromedan signs; he found none, but did note two dead zones where scanning had been blocked; one large, one small. Weyer did some trickery and scanned those regions. We found no Comstock material, but plenty of Andromedan material. There appeared to be five active robots waiting to ambush, and no biological organisms. The robots were one small, three medium, and one large robot. The small one was on patrol, and the one we managed to bring aboard after disabling was the medium ones. Given that a single one of those was a pretty good match for us, we decided we did not want to tangle with a large one, much less the whole group.

Further scanning revealed, of course, humanoid remains. What else would we expect from BioResearch? That certainly gave us cause to engage, but clearly we didn't want to charge in against overwhelming odds.

First we waited until the scout came to the front door, and we blasted it with the shuttle disruptors. They turned out to be worth every credit we paid; the shot did a lot of damage to the facility, and the robot was vaporized.

Unfortunately the others were not drawn out. Ch'Zathri proposed to go in; I argued that I, as the security officer, should, and we had a bit of a debate. We decided before proceeding to try an extended deep scan to figure out what, if anything, the robots were guarding; should that provoke them to attack, good. The scan, unfortunately, neither revealed anything, nor irritated the robots.

Our next step was to order the remains beamed up. We want to know who had been killed here, and maybe that action would provoke the Andromedan robots. The transporter chief was shocked by what he saw. We sent an onboard medical team to recover the bodies from the transporter room, autopsy them, and treat the remains as evidence of a crime.

I took a wall breaching shot, but Lt. Larsen, piloting, didn't do a great job of lining it up for me, and that side of the building just collapsed. All three of those robots (large and two medium) winked out of existence.

We went over to where the other robot was, an upstairs area on the other side, and tried the breach again. That went much better; we removed much of the wall without unduly damaging the contents. We found an area where a cryobed should be, and a cylindrical Andromedan robot hovering over a terminal. I attempted to pick the robot off without hitting the terminal, and succeeded. The facility was clear (for the moment) of robots.

Ch'Zathri and I headed inside to see what was on the terminal. Larsen and Weyer remained behind: Weyer scanning for inbound (or just-winked-into-existence) hostiles, and Larsen piloting the shuttle.

The robot had things set up on the terminal to trigger a power-plant overload. Weyer came from the shuttle to hack the terminal, and quickly defeated its security systems. We poked around, finding nothing of note, and then triggered the self-destruct to cover our tracks.

Back aboard we got the report on the remains. There were ten bodies: six humans, two Tellarites, two Vulcans. One human was a five-year-old boy, and one human was a female child, pre-adolescent; the rest were adults. Their wounds were consistent with energy weapons used by the robots. The subjects had been dead about ten months, just about the time BioResearch purchased Cavology.

Meanwhile, analysis had revealed the collected cloud to be like barnacles. We need to scrape it off the ship; it grows on whatever flies through it. And it does grow. It emitted radiation in infrared and X-ray (as we had previously seen at the control panel on Newlin II L23). The nutrients consumed by the barnacles are consistent with Comstock Material. We reasoned that there must be something innate to the material that lets the Andromedans do instant transportation, but a lot of the Andromedan ship is Comstock Material, and a lot of the ship's purpose is unknown, so, while we don't have a smoking gun yet, we're building a fascinating circumstantial case.

We decided that our next move would be to try to press BioResearch, and get (if we can) a scan of their planetary director, to see whether there's any evidence of replacement, or at least whether they too have a giant Comstock Crystal in their headquarters here.

We planned, once we've investigated BioResearch on Garnon, to proceed through the narrow corridor between IKS and Romulan space for our next journey. We planed to drop some buoys in the corridor between Romulan space and the IKS. Subspace transponders can't work through a cloak, so no need to even try to cloak them, I guess.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7502.08 : Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

The population here went from zero to 20 million in only three centuries.

Stardate 7502.07

We scanned the BioResearch HQ and found a blacked-out region. I could not penetrate it with sensors. We found out that Keith Cardenas, in his 40s, is the planetary CEO.

We staked out his utterly unremarkable residence first and eventually got a transporter lock on him but didn't take him anywhere, which freaked him out. That very detailed scan revealed him to be a baseline human as far as we could tell. A further scan of the blackout area didn't work either.

Broni called Ejhhynaoth Sh'kikrass and asked for a referral: Tanya Kelley was who she recommended. We went in looking for some personal weaponry. Tanya was missing her left arm at the elbow, the Tellarite's right arm was in a sling, and the other human was OK.

Weyer was INCREDIBLY rude, for no obvious reason. I don't know what's wrong with that boy sometimes.

They were not showing us the good stuff, which we pointed out, at which point they brought out the better stuff. I picked up a Romulan disruptor (with a stun setting!) and a bunch of EMP grenades. They did not sell shock batons nor have medical beds. I think we effectively gave the impression of a smuggling crew that wasn't above a little light piracy when the opportunity presented itself.

Back on board, we finally had the report on the corpses:

Calderan, human supply chain VP. Greg Allen, human VP sales - the children were his, 5yo male, 11yo female Hi, a Vulcan, supply chain worker four adults, no records, nothing on their persons: two humans and two tellarites Adolescent Vulcan male, un-IDed

Notable: Vuck was not one of the dead people.

I was now much more interested in finding Vuck. Weyer tried and failed to hack the planetary records. I did some research; he was sick (and hence, presumably, not seen in public in a long time), and he was active on social media right up until our arrival. Nothing since the Cavology building was blown up. I note that the robots, including the large one, teleported out. I think one of them was impersonating Vuck (or perhaps he'd been uploaded).

Further research revealed that Cavology was the single source of Andromedan cryobeds. It's sure not making them anymore.

I did not think we were likely to find Vuck, but we did locate his house. It was relatively near the ruin that was formerly the Cavology facility, and it is quite isolated. We planned to do an overfly and scan of the site, possibly augmented by a little breaking and entering if it looks like that will be useful.

Before that, we did a little recon of the BioResearch facility and found it pretty lax: surveillance cameras and one night guard at the front desk.

We beamed into the office next door to the blacked-out space. As expected, there were avoidable security cameras. Not as expected, there was a second guard, this one patrolling. Fortunately his movements were pretty easy to figure out. Lt. Cmdr Weyer looped the cameras to show a clip from two minutes before we arrived. The office we had arrived in was Cory Marsh's, who had a boring accounting job. The office of interest, next door, was unassigned.

The lock on that office's door was noticeably better than the one on Marsh's office, but I defeated it with ease. We hustled into the office and shut the door behind us. Inside, there was a weird-looking computer. Weyer did his bizarro machine-empathy thing and determined that the computer was a communication device. It had a secure communications channel to the planetary space station, monitored cryobed usage, and used to contain Comstock antenna material (but not by the time we got there).

We found lots of comms with Lilly Simmon, starport commander. Just a few days ago, Simmon warned Keith that the Odyssey had just arrived. She is not a BioResearch employee. We determined that messages with the commander started about the time of the BioResearch takeover of Cavology. I found a recent message to Keith from Simmon saying "Vuck has arrived safely," from just moments before we arrived at Cavology. For a while, this computer had been on the Comstock FTL network, but not now.

We made a copy of its memory and then beamed back aboard (dropping the sensor block for 45 seconds or so, to allow us to beam out).

We next took the shuttle down in our pirate disguise. I had had an awesome eyepatch fabricated that functions as a stealth HUD, and wore it. We found no lifesigns, and no robot signs.

The Vuck residence looked…unmaintained, but some rooms have been used recently, so Vuck might not be a robot after all. The meditation room had not been used in months, so no Vulcan had been living there.

That's a curious contradiction.

The exterior looked wild but maybe that was an intentional landscaping choice. The interior plants are dead (I could see Lt. Larsen getting upset by that). From effects we found in the meeting room: there had been a family unit, not just Vuck solo: specifically both a child and a woman, judging from the objects in the room, had at one point been resident. The cellar contained food and wine, typically Vulcan; we also found what appeared to be a woman's bedroom.

Between the man's and woman's bedrooms, there was a pit where a cryochamber would have been installed. It is extremely unusual to find a cryochamber in a personal residence, of course.

We soon found the child's bedroom as well. We found trace Andromedan elements near the cryochamber, and some non-Vulcan (human) DNA in the meeting room; that DNA was almost a year old. The Vulcan DNA is only a few days old, so Vuck probably hasn't been replaced, or the replacement is of the mind only, and is using the original body as a meat puppet.

The middle southern room was the most sophisticated one and contained the house computer. I asked Lt. Cmdr Weyer to please hack it for me, and he did so.

For the past 10 months the house records showed a solitary Vuck moving around the house, eating. He slept, not in the bedroom, but in the cryochamber. One of the cylinder robots stayed in that room while he was in the chamber. Older records showed that before 10 months ago, there was a young Vulcan (teenager) and a wife. I'm glad we took a copy of the records: I need to go through the surveillance and see whether the cryochamber was installed before 10 months previous, and when Vuck took to sleeping in it.

Knowing how BioResearch works, I asked Larsen to scan for humanoid remains nearby to the property. He scanned and, alas, found an unmarked grave. In it, there was the corpse of an adult Vulcan, about a year dead. We got a transporter lock on the body for a thorough scan, and the doctor told us it was evident that the body was about 100 years old (so, a mature Vulcan, but 100 for Vulcans is not 100 for humans). We beamed it aboard to do an autopsy. A wider search revealed no trace of the adolescent.

Doctor Mannheim thought it was likely that the corse was T'hu, Vuck's wife, and that she probably had been killed by an energy weapon, but further detail would take time to discover.

We agreed that we were probably done planetside, and decided to put in at the space station for resupply/refit and to see if we could lure Lilly out. She had recently said Vuck had arrived safely; could he be on the space station? Captain Ch'Zathri and I decided we'd play bad cop/good cop with Lilly and see what we could find out from her.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7502.09 : Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7502.08

We left Gamon with two captives, two tanning beds, and probably a lot of arrest warrants. It was time to do some interrogation.

I requested that Lt. Setok be present, since he had eidetic memory, and also that Lt. Zelad Fleur, a Betazoid, be present as a lie detector. Weyer monitored Simmon's implant.

The Captain remained on the bridge for the interrogation.

I began by telling Lily Simmon that she was welcome to make her complaints, et cetera, into my tricorder.

She was panicked. Even more than "I've been kidnapped and am in a jail," like straight-up freaking out panicked. I asked her why she accepted the bargain in the first place. I could see once you've been parasitized, that you'd go along, because you'd die if it left, but how would you be convinced to accept it in the first place?

She did not want to talk. I delivered my patter. She seemed to realize that we had someone else on board. When she was convinced she wasn't gonna leave the cell, she shut down. The only thing that piqued her interest was the possibility of another prisoner. She (or it) was worried that I had figured out so much of the parasitic relationship already. I taunted the Andromedan, and left. Lt. Larsen had some questions after I had gone:

"I'm the ship's botanist. Do your people have religion? I do." She (it?) was, at best, uninterested in the concept of religion.

"You want a plant? It could be a literal Lily." There was a reaction, albeit a microexpression. So maybe the woman was still in there somewhere. Larsen brought a potted lily down to put outside her cell. Weyer observed that her brain was basically inert except for motor functions. The Comstock material was doing the thinking, except for "I could bring you an actual lily," which triggered her human brain.

We shut off the X-Ray and IR radiation to Vuck. The biological material did not seem to be deteriorating. (Lily wasn't getting any because she was not in a modified cryobed to start with.) Dr. Manheim felt like within a week the Andromedan should be unable to communicate. Whatever (if anything) we're talking to then would be the host, not the parasite.

Weyer refused to mind meld with Vuck. Bad news for us, but healthily non-suicidal for him.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7502.12 : near Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7502.12

After several days outside her special cryobed, Lily became unresponsive. She never attempted to communicate. The Comstock material was inert. Doctor Manheim thought he could revive the biological host, and did so. She was clearly different.

It turned out that she could still speak! "I received a transmission from BioResearch; I transported down to their offices." She gave me a stardate, 7403.03, that matched the beginning of the shenanigans. The initial transmission had come from Keith. She actually seemed to be in reasonably good shape, considering. She was able to stand, to walk, and to converse with us. She asked who was in charge of the starport and seemed to be relieved it was Chester Hill. Honestly, it was miraculous.

Vuck seemed to be about like Lily, but dehydrated. Apparently a week or so of no sustenance is enough to make the CAM become dormant. We revived him and tried a similar set of questions. He remembered killing his wife. "I tried to resist. But they are relentless, cold, calculating. They have no empathy." I asked how he got infected. Bioresearch was interested in their facility; he went to a meeting. Keith Cardenas, some woman he didn't know, and Lily were present. Larsen asked: "do you have any sense of these entities' intentions? Why are they here?"

Vuck told us that they have complete hatred of organic intelligence. Hatred is inaccurate; that would imply emotion. Their mission is to eradicate organic intelligence, but they are not mere machines. They have minds. Awful minds, but minds. He had no idea about their hierarchy.

Vuck was able to sort of walk on his own. He was unsteady. Once he started moving, there was activity in the CAM. We dedcided to get him a lead blanket for his neck, and maybe an icepack.

The MO seems to be that after infestation, there's a four-week-or-so absence from social media, etc., and then the infected come back, presumably as the Andromedans figure out how to puppet their bodies. This happened to both Worthington and the Orion governor of Meadow. At this point I felt like we had enough to pin the genocide on the Andromedans but not really enough to implicate BioResearch for sure. I really, really want to know whether Worthington chose this course or it was forced upon him.

I argued that we should transmit what we've got as securely as we can. It might be intercepted, but honestly the Andromedans know that we know, so…how much would that actually hurt?

Lt. Cmdr. Talia Solari : Engineering Lab Report : Stardate 7502.17 : near Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Analysis of Andromedan Robots

Captain Ch'zathri tasked our research team with the study of three captured Andromedan robots, with an emphasis on anything we could exploit in future combat engagements. While this might sound paranoid, based on my personal experience with Andromedans—unprovoked attacks from starships, and on atrocities Cmdr. Nyekundu briefed me on—exterminations of families numbering in the hundreds of thousands, I was eager to lend my engineering expertise to the problem.

It is my opinion that the Andromedan's most exploitable weakness is their dependence on infrared and x-ray radiation for sustenance. While their technology is equal to the Federation in most ways, they seem to have almost wholey substituted energy storage with energy collection. Based on the design of the robots (one fairly intact "spider" and two heavily damaged "cylinders"), I believe the Comstock Antena Material (CAM hereafter) functions as both brain and power source for a robot. Based on Lt. Cmdr. Weyer's findings, the CAM is not merely an advanced electronic control element, but is instead a sentient entity. Indeed, the way the CAM interfaces with a robot implies that a robot serves as a temporary chassis that a CAM operator uses to interact with its environment. The robots do contain capacitors for high power elements like weapons, but there an no components dedicated to long-term energy storage or power generation.

In addition to the lack of any dedicated power source, there is a conspicuous absence of communication elements. We have ascertained the purpose of every non-CAM component of the robots, e.g. locomotion, sensors, weapons. Nothing in these robots appears dedicated to communication. It's possible their sensor array could be used for communication—the robots are certainly capable of perceiving sound, radio, etc.—but there is nothing akin to a dedicated transmitter or subspace transceiver.

As noted before, the robots are designed to allow the CAM to easily connect and disconnect with a robot. Additionally, robots are designed to allow for the CAM to easily situate itself into two locations: one well protected and interior to the robot, and another such that as much as 20% of the surface of the CAM could be exposed while the remaining 80% maintains connection to interior robot elements. The reason behind the semi-exposed position is not certain. Lt Larson's research with the CAM in biological hosts reveals that an exposed portion of the CAM allows it to access infrared and x-ray radiation and molecular nutrients while their hosts are in their "beds". It's likely this semi-exposed position serves a similar purpose.

It is this officers opinion that the Andromedans dependence on infrared and x-ray radiation is a weakness which could be exploited in combat.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7502.20 : near Gamon (aka Garnon), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7502.13

Counsellor Lee approached Larsen. "I've been dealing with Vuck and Simmon…today Vuck seems to have no memory of anything he did after being infected and he wants to know why he's here and where his wife and son are…I think he's completely regressed to pre-infection." Perhaps the parasite was storing his memories. According to Lee, he wanted to go back home and she didn't doesn't know what to tell him. Larsen took the problem to Captain Ch'Zathri and me.

I suggested, "well, let's show him the tapes of himself confessing to his wife's murder." I was reminded that Vulcans can repress their own memories, but what if this isn't that? What if he could not form long-term memories at all? That would not be inconsistent with his presumed brain damage.

Stardate 7502.14

We determined that Vuck was indeed forming memories day after day. So I showed the video of his first interrogation. He was, understandably, very shaken and frightened. Manheim told him that removing the implant would likely kill him or make him a vegetable, and it might not be possible. Vuck wanted it removed, regardless of the risk. I got his consent for THIS recording to be used too, and let him know that I admired his decision and that I hoped to have the strength to make a similar one someday should it be required. Manheim would be able to operate the next day.

Why, we wondered, had Lilly not had a similar reaction? Is it just the difference between Vulcan vs. Human? Lee thought so: her hypothesis was that we simply shocked Vuck out of his repression and denial.

Stardate 7502.16

The operation was a success, but the patient died. Just kidding. It wasn't a success: the material was not dormant and resisted. The big chunks came out OK but the tendrils were self-repairing even during the operation and may be able to repair the big chunks given time. There may have been significant brain damage.

Stardate 7502.17

Larsen wanted to try something while the Comstock Antenna Material was in shambles…and he could not make contact.

Vuck did eventually wake up. He was badly damaged but was expected in time to make a nearly-full recovery, rather like a 21st century stroke victim.

I talked to Lilly and offered the same surgery. She was not eager.

Weyer attached diodes from an improvised Comstock antenna (taken from the spider robot) to the implant and observed it. The antenna and the extracted material interfaced through a fairly standard electronic bus. The antenna material on each side started restructuring itself, moving towards the other side. It would take days—not hours, not weeks—to bridge the gap. Weyer tried to make contact: "HEAL" was all he got from the material.

We decided to feed it a little IR. When the sides did make contact, it became one big CPU, not two little ones: now a single, more advanced mind, still focussed on healing.

The IR it enjoys is just barely longer-wavelength than red light (that is, very near IR). Cooling it didn't seem to change anything or inconvenience it at all.

"Why do you hate people so much," Weyer asked it. The answer was, it sees all biological life as a threat. What's the context behind "threat?" There's not enough room in the Galaxy for their intelligence and organic intelligence. Their purpose is to grow, and it would not occur to them not to do so. So they are simultaneously cancer, capitalism, and colonizers, along with another c-word I won't put in my report.

"How did you get here?" Weyer asked. It fought back, but he learned that they came from Andromeda at sublight speeds. (Editorial note: Ho-lee shit. Well, how close to the speed of light? Maybe it wasn't quite that bad subjectively, but still…)

Stardate 7502.20

We got some news: on Stardate 7410.28 Alison Wong reported that an unknown ship disrupted coborite production work on L23, and Lance Worthington III, on Comstock, reported that production would resume shortly.

It did not seem to me or Larsen that there was any diplomatic solution. Our best bet was to shatter the Comstock Antenna, and then see what mopping up we would need to do.

Captain Ch'Zathri sent an urgent subspace update to Starfleet summarizing our findings.

My primary concern, from a prosecutorial standpoint, is the following. First, we need to confirm that Worthington has been infected with the Andromedan crystal. If he (like Keith Cardenas), has not, then he is prima facie guilty, guilty, guilty. If he has, our prosecution may be more nuanced: was he compelled to do the hideous genocidal things he has done, or did he do them of his own free will? Either way, we need to make them stop. Destroying the primary antenna on Comstock seems like it would be a good start. Offering a choice of risky surgery or a merciful death to any crystal-infested BioResearch execs would be a good second step. Beyond that, it's not clear to me.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7503.18 : near H'Lass, The Triangle - Romulan border : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7502.27

We had determined that when CAM crystals are merged they become a single mind. Are they from Andromeda originally? Or was that just their last conquest on their journey? Larsen was of the opinion that sonic weapons could make the crystals shatter.

Stardate 7503.06

We responded. I scanned the vessel overenthusiastically and determined it was a Tavares-class commercial freighter. It had six decks in total and a complement of eleven Tellarites, two of them children. They were carrying no Comstock material, but lots of parasite crystals, especially around their landing struts.

Since it turned out we had some too, we offered to do a display of the remediation techniques when we cleaned our own ship up.

"Uh, we've been told not to do business with you. They say you kidnapped one of their corporate executives."

We replied, "Yeah, well, OK, here's how you deal with the infestation. Feel free to watch, or not…" So we did the phaser treatment on the Odyssey, and after we were done, Waottoth gave us permission to proceed, so we cleaned up their ship too. Their last ports of call were Jemison and Garnon, so that didn't offer us any new insight into the Andromedan spread.

Stardate 7503.18

A Romulan encounter: Captain Thurotu of the SC Ujeel. This was a quite historical information exchange.

The Romulans had been unaware of the Andromedan parasitic ability. Their data on robots gave us knowledge of the BB robot (2mm, "dot robot"), which emits gravitons. They are found after a conflict, one per object that disappeared; those are almost entirely CAM. IKS has also had encounters with the Andromedan robot fleet.

Thurotu was heavily facially tattooed, which I knew to be unusual. I asked him about it and he told me that his son was killed by one of these robots. He seemed to think that answers my question. "If this information enables me to avenge my son's death, you will have made a friend here today." I replied that I fervently hoped it would.

The next day there was some minor intel: the prisoner exchange continues, but in Federation space, it's really hard to tell Vulcans from Romulans.

Some media searches revealed that Taggart and Worthington are ALWAYS, ALWAYS dressed to hide the backs of their necks. That's new since the presumed infestation date.

Stardate 7503.22

We learned that the UFP was actively courting the world of Morning Garden.

Stardate 7504.20

The prototype weapon became available.

Stardate 7504.27

We first tested our prototype sonic weapon. I shorted out one power point of antimatter power. It would take a week to fix and try again.

After reviewing the information available, we decided to skip Tannine (determinedly primitive, no trade with Galactic races, and the guidebook straight-up said "no redeeming features") and go straight to Flitner V.

Stardate 7505.04

We did the second weapons test: the weapon belched noxious emissions, requiring vacc suits for its crew. One more week of refinements.

Stardate 7505.11

Third weapons test: emissions were reduced; now the weapons crew would only need NBC suits.

Stardate 7505.18

Fourth weapons test: no toxic emissions, just nasty migraines for its crew.

Stardate 7505.25

Fifth weapons test: whoops! We lost all sensor and target locks.

Stardate 7506.01

Sixth weapons test: the weapon was still disrupting other systems.

Stardate 7506.08

Seventh weapons test: weapon works, but has a super-dirty and obvious emissions signature; its use would attract a lot of attention.

Stardate 7506.15

Eighth weapons test: no issues! Finally we had a working anti-Andromedan weapons system!

Also 7506.15: We arrived at Flitner V.

We got some news about the Mantiev Colonial Association: things have heated up there too—our theory of Klingon/Romulan proxy war seemed to be borne out. Space Barnacles were also a problem in the Flitner system.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7506.15 : Flitner V, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen" : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7506.15

We noted three other ships, at warp, coming from about our direction, also approaching the Flitner system. They were not sending transponder codes. They appeared to be Klingon, coming from the IKS. There were two large and one smaller ships: a D-7 battlecruiser, a D-18 heavy destroyer, and a K-23 escort. I ordered a yellow alert: since Flitner has no trade with the Klingons, the probability of violence seemed high.

They hailed us. Onscreen was, surprisingly, a human, who identified himself as one Corbin Nader, claiming to be the "legitimate heir" to Flitner V, here to depose the current king. His crew appeared to be Klingon. He appeared to be younger than either Danni or Ralin Nader (the two presumptive claimaints to the throne). He seemed to be telling the truth.

He and his bodyguards (his wife was one of the two) agreed to beam aboard to discuss the situation. She stood next to him like an equal, rather than acting as an inferior. We proceeded to a conference room.

Nader first said his father was said to be deceased. We hadn't heard that. Then his story changed to imprisoned, or maybe in mental decline and wishing for death? He was sounding a little fishy.

The two older brothers, Corbin Nader claimed, made his father believe that Corbin was conniving to take the throne, when actually it was they who were doing it, and thus he was sent into exile. And yet here he is, returning with a small Klingon army to, well, take the throne. To say that he was not selling it would have been an understatement.

He said he would prove his brothers' perfidy. If he should fail, it's none of our concern. Obviously there's not much we can do, rules of engagement et al, but we can provide neutral third party arbitration. I assured them, in Klingon, that if they can prove their case, I'm onboard. And in Galactic Standard I said that I was pretty disillusioned with many humans and Orions in the Triangle.

His wife was named Ushuyr Firgang, and her father was sympathetic to Corbin's cause. He would not give us his father-in-law's name, and "Firgang" did not ring any bells for me, not that much information leaks out of the IKS in the first place.

Ch'zathri offered that the warships go back to IKS while Corbin and his retinue come with us under our protection. He countered with "out-of-system but nearby" and we agreed.

We scanned there ship for barnacles or CAM. Corbin was definitely not parasitized: his neck was clearly visible. These Klingon ships, like the ones we encountered earlier, are undermanned and underpowered. They are conserving energy.

Meanwhile, we had picked up zero chatter between the Romulans and the IKS on our sensor network. The IKS seems quite insular.

Corbin and his wife (no additional bodyguard) returned. The King had not been on social media for months. The capital government buildings seemed to be vacant. Weird. We hailed the planet and notice that their comms towers were on the north pole and on the equatorial belt. It looked like we arrived when the planet was already in a balkanized war of brother against brother. OK, OK, so not actually at war, but divided all right. We ruled out the existence of any Comstock Antenna-scale concentration of material, but there might be smaller amounts, such as robots.

We found no evidence of mass murder/mass killings. Prince Danni ruled the poles; his throne was in the north polar region. He wanted an Independent Flitner. The equatorial lands belonged to Ralin, who wanted Flitner to join Bakers' Dozen.

We also learned that Star Productions has been using DANA to engineer hybrids. Meadow, of course, was converted to DANA production by committing genocide on the Vulcan population, leaving few to protest BioResearch's acquisition and exploitation of the planet.

The news about the king was that King Kapri had retired and placed his two sons in charge of the planet. That tweaked my propaganda red-flag spidey-sense. He was said to have stayed with one son, then the other, and then vanished. This sounded very fishy.

I surmised that the King was in his palace, conveniently located on the border between the sons' regions. No doubt he had a privy counsellor who looked and spoke a lot like Brad Dourif. Each of the two regent princes skimmed a little something from any commerce. However, rather than the traditional use of tax revenue to maintain the body politic, it looked like that sales tax is just going into their pockets.

It did occur to me that excessive greed could provide a very useful lever for Andromedans-in-the-guise-of-Bioresearch to mount their conquest campaign. After all, it worked with Taggar on Meadow, and probably was the initial impetus behind Lance Worthington III's initial capitulation to the Andromedans.

We scanned and found a dead shielded zone in the Star Productions DANA facility. The shielding seemed mundane, not Andromedan. There were maybe 30 people in the facility.

Whatever was blocking the sensors was local manufacture and I was not able to hack it from orbit. The transporter rooms were not manned, which promised to make breaking and entering much easier.

We beamed down a bug into the Room Where The Magic Happens, and it's happening to staples, not luxury foodstuffs. The people in that room were wearing cleanroom suits. We sent another bug into the mess hall and found people in street clothes; no uniforms, so that too would make it easier to beam down and blend in.

I managed to hear a conversation between two people, a man and a woman, in cleanroom suits.

The woman said, "Do you have any idea of what we're doing?" The man replied, "Not really. I understand part of it. We should be successful. It's working, but I don't understand half of the modifications. Above my pay grade."

So we would need at least Lt. Larsen, to figure out what they're actually doing with the DANA, and Lt. Cmdr. Weyer, to hack their terminals to find out what the higher-ups think they're doing on a strategic level. I'd be amazed if Captain Ch'zathri didn't want to come on this adventure, and I was not disappointed. And, hey, the gang's all here: the Prince wanted to go too, as did Firgang…so we put her in a bunny suit to disguise her Klingon features. Then we beamed down and made our way to the shielded room and swiftly cracked the lock.

In the shielded room we found an empty cryobed, with residual CAM in it. The DNA left behind revealed no relation to the prince, so presumably neither of his brothers had been giving an Andromedan parasite X-ray and IR nutrition.

Capt. Ushuyr Firgang : Mission Log : Stardates 7506.16 : Flitner, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen" : IKS Triumph

Stardate 7506.15

As we neared Flitner V, we encountered the USS Odyssey, a Miranda class medium cruiser captained by an Andorian, Ch'zathri. Given the addition the Odyssey could make to Flitner's defense forces, I counseled Prince Corbin Nider to allow Captain Ch'zathri to broker a peaceful transfer of power on Flitner V. As part of that negotiation, our battle group was to wait outside the system. Corbin and I became guests of the USS Odyssey.

As Corbin suspected, his siblings, Danni and Rallin, had already usurped authority from his father, Kapri. The use of "DANA" by a terran corporation, Star Productions, aroused the suspicions of Odyssey's senior staff and we beamed down surreptitiously into a food-grain bioenginering plant. They were obviously on to something as we soon encountered one of the implant beds. The science officer, Larson, ask me if I knew what it was. I advised them to kill the implanted user on sight.

Their operations officer, Weyer, determined that the bed's user would likely return in two hours. We took up tactical positions and waited; but we didn't have to wait long. Soon after taking up tactical positions—only a few minutes after we'd entered the implant-bed room—the room's only door opened: nobody entered and nobody saw anybody in the adjacent room. The doors quickly closed. A few seconds later two machines (cylindrical) popped into the room and began their attacks. As we had arrived disguised as Star Production employees, nobody was carrying any weapons capable of dealing with the machines. Captain Ch'zathri immediately ordered us beamed out, saving our lives, but not before I and their security officer, Nyekundu, were seriously wounded.

I should add that Larson, the science officer, took a shot for me, potentially sacrificing himself, after seeing me take a hit and unable to defend myself. While I am not ignorant of the Federation's insidious modes of territorial expansion and resource acquisition, I submit they are far more honorable than Romulans and Orions. Establishing trade relations with the UFP and UFP-friendly Triangle worlds, should be considered. And with the addition of this new machine threat, if a temporary military alliance becomes necessary, I would be able to fight alongside at least the officers of the USS Odyssey.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7506.16 : Flitner V, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen" : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7506.16

The doctor patched me up pretty well from my encounter with the Andromedan cylinders.

We should probably go back down to the facility and look for dot robots.

Maybe this would be the time to show our hands and show the benefits of dealing with the Federation.

Weyer needed to get to the computer records, and he also needed to get them to Larsen to determine what's going on with the DANA. We also wanted to get a sample of the grain. We decided to head down in bunny suits, to prolong our disguise potential.

We arrived in the room with the grain containers. Since there were three types, we beamed a sample from each up.

Then I "pulled the fire alarm". Everyone started fleeing. I tried to convince the dawdling scientists at the terminals to flee, which they eventually did. We attempted to extract as much data as possible as fast as possible and then join the exodus.

Larsen and Weyer took a little while to strip all the data. It seemed to us that only the rank-and-file evacuated: no upper management. We acquired the data, so we were free to leave at any time, and we did.

We beamed out. Weyer had meantime been scanning the security cameras. The single-bed rooms in the barracks, as expected, were foremen, not execs. There was, however, one dude in a suit who went into the back room. He dressed to cover his neck; we had enough to ID him. That will be our man.

He was Eric Smith, a human male. He is small of stature, 5'4" or so. Sometimes he does actual lab work. He took a vacation a little while ago and upon his return, he brokered the DANA deal. He has been a guest in Prince Danni's palace (the agricultural, polar prince).

We wondered whether we could find similar dirt on Rallin? Because if so, Corbin's path to the throne would become a whole lot clearer. We found nothing so incriminating: no DANA use, no corporation has been purchased by BioResearch. Rallin has, however, been seen in the company of an Orion woman.

She had long beautiful hair, which occasionally whooshed artfully out of the way to reveal that she did not have a parasite. Rallin may be corrupt, but at least he's not working against all biological life. The Orion mistress is recent; he has been married for quite a while.

His wife had been, oddly, visiting her brother-in-law Danni. The Orion, Henno, had been seen in the company of both princes. That seems ominous. Not Andromedan bad, but not good. She first appeared with Danni. Then she was with Rallin. Equal time? This seemed really weird.

We tailed her to a shop, met her, invited her for a drink, and told her about the Andromedans. She told us she had been purchased by the old king, and now he's so old not even she can… So she's moving on to the younger generation. There was no civil war brewring: oh, no, the princes are buddies and they get along great.

I was pretty sure that she was telling the truth but she wasn't happy with it. The King had been her first client. She appeared to be in her early 20s, so not that long ago. 8 years tops.

She then tried to seduce me, and I…well, what the hell. If this is being read by Starfleet or projected on a wall for a class of student, what the hell. I'm pretty proud of this.

I went along. I felt an undue attraction—oh boy, did I—but I was not beguiled. And indeed I beguiled her in return. That's right, lads: an Orion Slave Girl was addicted to me. That will forever be a notch on my bedpost, painted in deep green fingernail polish.

We got the results back on the grain samples: they are all staples, and one or another will therefore be present in most meals served in the system. And each of them included an introduced retrovirus. It doesn't seem to, and is not present in either our Vulcan or Human post-CAM-infection subjects. So it's novel.

Larsen suspected this to be half of a game plan. He didn't know what the other half is, although, based on what happened on Meadow, I think I can guess. Even it it's not that bad, no matter what, this is horrifying and unethical: there is a deliberate plot afoot to infect all the (many, many) consumers of these staples with…well, I don't know, but I'm sure it's a latent thing that will do something awful.

King Kipri Nider : Subspace Communiqué to the UFP : Stardates 7506.17 : Flitner, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen"

I am King Kapri Nider of Flitner V. Your Captain Ch’zathri recently visited my world. Through his good judgement and diplomacy he allowed me to reunite with my son and avoid the hostile take-over of my world by Klingons. He has my highest regards.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7506.18 : Flitner V, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen" : USS Odyssey

Dear Diary, What The Hell Just Happened?

It appears that I was investigating Henno and Rallin and I must have succumbed to Henno's pheremonic magic. What little I remember is that I wasn't impressed with either Rallin or his wife. Neither one seemed actively malicious, just venal, and with little interest (if any) in improving the lives of their subjects. I detected no hint of any Andromedan involvement. After that it's pretty much a blur until I came to in sick bay.

This also doesn't have anything overtly to do with the Andromedans, but we ascertained that Triangle Life and Casualty is a division of the Wthlian Loan Association. There's some impressive self-dealing going on here: the Loan Association lends some poor captain money to buy a ship; either he gets attacked by pirates, or the anti-pirate insurance costs so much that he gets behind on the payments. The Loan Association cuts a deal: he can repossess other deadbeats' ships so his own doesn't get repoed. What's a pirate but a repo man, if the mortgage holder doesn't care what happens to the cargo? And so the cycle of life continues.

I'm impressed, in a disgusted kind of way. Also…we've seen that greed is a great opening lever for the Andromedans to pull. We should find out if anyone's seen Wthlian's neck recently.

As far as the remainder of the crew could tell, the King seemed fine, not lost in senile befuddlement. His right-hand-man seemed kind of suspect. Romulan? But some weird kind of Romulan. At any rate, neither one was infected.

The Captain was a bit taken aback at my description of Henno's relationship to the royal family (that is, property of the king, but herself moving on to the younger generation—yes, both of them—as his, ah, power faded).

Weyer decided to interrogate Henno; Ch'Zathri and I watched from the Captain's Ready Room. He didn't open with smalltalk (indeed, he had his ears plugged, apparently having Orions confused with classical Sirens), just went straight for the mind probe, and after some initial difficulty, succeeded. Henno knew nothing about the Andromedans other than what I'd told her in our first meeting. She did, however, meet Eric Smith in Danni's palace. She was surprised at how resistant to her charms he was. Weyer found no indication that Danni was aware of Smith's Andromedan infection either.

Weyer then took out his earplugs and asked, "Do you know who Eric Smith is?" "Eric Smith? Oh. I have met him. At Danni's palace." We tried to come up with a plan to use Henno to get to Smith.

"Thank you for talking to me. You should know I find your manipulation of men quite distasteful." Weyer was sort of adorable in his obliviousness.

At this point, and possibly undermining my "hey, let's start bankrolling an Orion Women emancipation movement" plan I discussed with Starfleet: I am suspicious that it's actually quite common for Orion women to be calling the shots, despite what the powerful men in their lives believe. For some reason, perhaps cultural, they do not want to be seen to be in charge; rather they prefer to control men who do their bidding.

Ch'Zathri went and talked to Rallin. "What I need is to be returned home." Rallin was surprised to hear that Corbin and the King were on good terms again. "So what happened?" "Well, Father is old and he has good days and bad days, but he decided it was time to retire." "I didn't have a problem with Corbin; my father had a problem with Corbin." The usual court intrigue. "I'm surprised my father took him back." "I gave my word to your father I'd keep you under protection and safe from harm."

Our concern about Henno was brushed aside: "This is the Triangle, we do business with the Orions." "Yeah, everybody does business with the Orions," was the Captain's reply.

Rallin says he wouldn't object to going to make nice with Corbin. The Captain then asked, "What can you tell me about Rajaith, the advisor?" "He's been a close confidante for years and has served the King well; I'm lucky to have Henno in the same role."

After that talk, Captain Ch'Zathri went to the brig and chewed Henno out for her manipulation of his First Officer (awww, but, sure, I bear some responsibility for that, of course), and said he thought he could prosecute her were we in Federation Space.

He suspected that someone, somewhere, has a warrant for her, or that she's on the run from Orions. He offers to let her go if she stays away from Flitner and doesn't involve herself in another planetary government situation. Don't cross my path again, the Captain told her, and we'll be fine.

Henno turned him down flat: "Flitner has been my home for years. I have no intention of leaving. I have done nothing wrong." "You've done nothing illegal, but wrong is a matter of perspective. Sorry about your officer, can't we just forget the whole thing?" "Andorians, like Vulcans, don't forget."

Captain Ch'Zathri beamed down to the King's palace: does he want her removed from the planet? "Oh, no, I couldn't do that to her." She's welcome on Flitner, as far as the King is concerned.

Then Ch'zathri said to Rajaith, "Thank you for allowing me the privacy. You know, I've never met a Reman before." He got no reaction, but no denial either. So >that's a Reman. Interesting.

The sons started negotiating about who was going to host the feel-good reconciliation meeting, and … "…Father, you did abdicate." "Hey, I'm the one who got kidnapped! The captain said it'd be my palace!" Everything fell apart. We noticed that Henno seemed pleased when negotiations broke down.

Captain Ch'Zathri offered some unsolicited advice: "You know, Your Majesty, I come from a large and traditional Andorian family. I think that if I or my siblings were to get in this sort of conflict, well, the humans have a saying about "I'd be taken out to the woodshed"". If you are actually King…maybe you should take them out to the woodshed."

"My sons are correct; I did retire." "And you're happy with that decision?" "I'm not dealing with retirement as well as I'd hoped, but they could be more gracious."

After that, unprompted (perhaps confusing Eric Smith for Joseph Smith?), Weyer went on a bizarre anti-Mormon rant. Apparently polygamy freaks him out and father and sons sharing the same woman REALLY freaks him out. What a prude.

≪break in the action≫

Smith had not been heard from since 7506.15. Has anyone placed an order for one of those beds in the last couple days, since we stole his and his parasite will be getting cranky? The bed we took from Star Productions had arrived way back on 7312.25; there were two cryobeds in the shipment. Where was that second one delivered? Also to Star Productions, it turned out. One was unloaded at the facility. From there, the shuttle that had been carrying the shipment went to Danni's palace. That's interesting.

I selflessly offered to beg Henno for another meeting so that we could get into Danni's palace, and amazingly the Captain agreed to this course of action, but we decided to scan first. Danni's palace was well-shielded against remote scans, which was a little but not tremendously surprising.

Eventually I called Henno. We agreed I'd beam her up to the Odyssey and then we'd head back down to Danni's palace, which, I claimed, could give us more privacy than the ship. Once there, the guards recognized Henno, of course, and brought her straight to the prince.

While we were going there, I did a quick scan and found a scan-blocked room. This was just what I needed.

While perhaps bad for romance, being put in front of the prince was actually exactly what I'd been counting on. I immediately spilled the beans about Andromedans, conquest, cryobeds, parasites, et cetera to the Prince. I'm sure he would have thought I was crazy, but Henno backed me up. I made a prediction: if we went straight to Eric's quarters—which, I predicted, were right here—indicating the scan-blocked room on a map of the palace—we would find a cryobed. That bed would have been modified to deliver X-rays and IR radiation, neither of which were good for baseline humans.

Danni agreed to this plan, and we went to the room, entered, and found exactly what I had predicted. I asked Prince Danni to drop his shields for a moment so I could beam the bed up to the Odyssey, and he agreed, so I did.

Having established my credibility, I asked him to lead me to Eric Smith. We found him in the library, his back to us, and I got the drop on him. He never even turned around, and I hit him with a heavy stun and knocked him out before he knew anything was amiss. I immediately bound him.

I hugged Henno and whispered in her ear that I hoped she would rule wisely and well. That took her aback.

Then I beamed out with my prisoner.

Next stop: Hoot.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7506.29 : near Flinter v and Hoot, The Triangle approaching "Baker's Dozen" : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7506.15

We found that DANA-modified seeds were going to market and were aboard a Triangle Shipping vessel (the company appeared to be legitimately neutral), headed for Turningspoint and Morning Garden.

We tried pretty hard to establish that we were sending a fairly secure subspace message to that ship, and found (as a byproduct of that investigation) that the Romulans were the only power snooping transmissions over on this edge of the Triangle. I guess it really says something that "oh, well, only the Romulan Empire heard us" seems like excellent news by now.

We contacted Captain Santos of the CS Reliant. Ch'Zathri introduced himself and as part of the communication gave all the information that would enable both the transport ships and the destination ports to determine that the grain was in fact tainted. Santos gave Ch'Zathri his supervisor's contact information, because this was going to end up involving policy far above his pay grade.

Captain Ch'Zathri also contacted Turningspoint/Morning Garden and gave them a heads up. Obviously they weren't pleased to learn their seed shipment wasn't coming after all, but they also did not want to expose their people to grain tainted with a retrovirus of unknown origin and purpose.

We determined that there was another cargo ship, headed for Hoot. This one was the cargo ship Omen, captained by an Andorian, Sottaa Sh'chenis. Her supervisor is someone different than Santos's, and this one was a lot angrier than the previous one. Triangle Shipping has had a lot of issues recently…even though they are TLC members in good standing. That's an interesting fact, although we don't know what to make of it yet.

Stardate 7506.29

We learned that the proxy war on Paxton III and Paxton IV sees the sides using Federation and Romulan weapons. The Captain proclaimed this "concerning", with a nearly-Vulcan level of understatement.

After that, we proceeded to Eric Smith, whom we woke from his induced coma after long enough that we believed his parasite should have become dormant.

He was enthusiastic about his "AI assistant" and stated that it gave him some good ideas. He seems to genuinely believe his own marketing material, or perhaps his own fertilizing agent. We sat him down and had a loooong Come To Jesus session with him. He demanded to see the grain, so we took him under escort to our lab. And then we scheduled a subspace videocall with Star Productions on Flitner, so that he could see that the origin of the tainted grain was indeed the facility he ran.

He was not happy about being in the brig (for understandable reasons, of course), but we felt, since he was clearly a very smart individual, if he had access to the amenities of proper guest quarters, he was likely to be able to rig nourishment for his parasite. He did seem to be legitimately reviewing our evidence that the implants are bad business and that Meadow was indeed a genocide.

He claimed—I believe truthfully—that he did not give any orders to tamper with the grain, although he did not have any alternative theories. For what it's worth—and I told him as much—I believed that Eric Smith indeed gave no such orders, but Eric-Smith-plus-Andromedan-parasite most certainly did, and that as the Andromedans wished the extermination of all organic life, Eric Smith would have to suffer for the actions of his rider, if he would not allow us to remove the parasite. Which he vehemently would not.

The Captain had questions for Lt. Yolanda Lee, about the ethics of what to do if someone, even once freed from its influence, did not want the implant removed. She was not much help, or from a more charitable viewpoint, it is indeed an ethically difficult situation and there is no obvious right answer.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7507.14 : Hoot, Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds (aka Baker's Dozen), The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Our guests were beginnng to be troublesome. Vuck was doing OK but wanted Vulcan treament. Lilly Simmon had a Messiah complex. Eric Smith wanted his implant back.

Stardate 7507.04

Ch'zathri got an encrypted message from Starfleet. They wanted the Comstock Antenna Material delivered to Starbase 234 or Lakeland quickly and securely. So much for our hopes of really exploring the Triangle, although it at least sounded like they don't expect us to drop everything and pull a U-Turn. We pointed out that if they could destroy at least one robot, they would have a sample of the material.

Stardate 7507.13

We arrived at Hoot. Its star is Holler, of course.

I put out the bulletin to our crew: you probably don't want to wear your uniform, do your shopping and don't tell me about it, we leave in 72 hours, don't miss the boat. I also found out there's local fauna called Hoot Mountain Beasts: the shorter the range when you down them, the more macho you are considered. I now had a plan for my shore leave.

The planet's largest governing bodies are city states, governed by Mayors; there is a yearly Circle of Mayors meeting. Although, a succesful rancher, or anyone of significant wealth, can project as much influence as any Mayor.

The timing of our arrival was fortuitous: Kriel V'lagas, the Andorian CEO of the Jav Free Trade Corporation, was on planet hoping to expand their operations on Hoot. We called him up. He sounded drunk, but welcomed us. We agreed to meet him at a saloon later that evening.

I'm wore the Shaft The Pirate outfit, carrying my Romulan disruptor and my stun baton, and I fluffed out my Afro and embedded my rhinestone-studded Afro pick into it. I also carried a hypospray of Pheromone Resistance in my pocket, just in case I met an Orion girl.

The bar was called "The Tempation" and was pretty swank. It had a bouncer; we identified ourselves, and were pointed to the weapons check. I handed over the disruptor, holding out the Phaser I, and the bouncer didn't care about either the knives or the stun wand.

V'lagas introduced us to his date—girlfriend? Wife? Bodyguard? Dunno. There were three capitivating Orion women singing and dancing onstage. I looked around and noted a VIP room up another level, with an Orion man watching the floor. The servers in the bar are Vulcan and Human. I realized the guy upstairs was Timmon, the bar's owner/operator.

I bought a round. The woman was openly wearing a sidearm, so I'm going with "bodyguard" and obviously she's special (or V'lagas is special) to be allowed to carry it in the bar. It was a Federation Phaser II. I caught her eye, glanced at it, and gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up; she nodded in reply. She didn't have a recommendation for an outfitter, but I do want to hunt a Wild Mountain Beast Cowboy-style.

I allowed as how I might be planning to be entrepreneurial when I retire and this looks like a nice place for it. Weyer suggested I open up a man-brothel, but that isn't going scale. V'lagas warned me about Orion women, et cetera. Pretty standard fare.

Ch'zathri was flirting with the bodyguard. She was a bit cagey. Kri'el had been here 4 years; she had only been working for him a couple years.

Broni was pretty forthright about wanting to get the Affiliation to get the world on board with the Federation, and seemed to win V'lagas over. We're not gonna get them joining the Federation, but V'lagas, and probably the people's, sympathies are with the UFP.

I gave him the only-slightly sanitized version of the Andromedan invasion, and he seemed receptive. He now knows to look for people with crystals in their necks, and cylinder and sphere robots. I gave him my subspace direct line.

We suddenly got a call: Ensign Talea reported that Lilly Simmons had escaped. We made our excuses, I got my disruptor and set it on heavy stun, and we asked to be transported to where she went. It was a crowded part of town, and pretty seedy. I found a food truck guy and intimidated him, and he pointed the way she went. We found a scanner-blocker vendor, whom I also intimidated. He told me what she bought, and so I bought one of the same thing and handed it to Weyer to analyze. We continued downtown, following her.

We turned into a very sketchy alley. There was a crash as of a dumpster slamming. We found her, proclaiming that the end is near.

I managed to stun her and beam back up without further ado, although I caught some side-eye, especially when I told the assorted bums watching her that she was right, there was indeed a plot to destroy all life, and they should look out for people with crystals on their necks and spherical and cylindrical robots. Then I had Words with the transporter chief.

Finally I could start my shore leave: I went hunting and managed to stun a Mountain Beast with the stun wand. It was about moose-sized. I got it all on video to prove my manliness, but left it alive, because it's not like I have room, or frankly desire, to mount its head in my cabin.

Then we proceeded onwards to Baker's World.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.01 : Flitner V, The Triangle - near "Baker's Dozen", The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7507.16 - Hoot

Eric Smith did want the implant removed, his stated reasoning being that having it removed would be unsafe. He does not think that he is responsible for altering the grain, even in the face of quite a lot of evidence that he did.

Captain Ch'zathri pointed out to him that he was unlikely to be welcomed on Flitner, and offered to call and ask if there was a warrant for Smith's arrest; Smith stated he was prepared to accept oversight.

We had a surprisingly long debate. All of us agreed letting him go would be unwise. Returning him to Flitner, if the King intended to prosecute, would be plausible, but I felt bad about it. Weyer and Manheim were in favor of operating without his consent, Manheim at least to the extent of cutting the exposed part of the rider (not in contact with the brain) out and adding a skin graft over it, so Smith would be forced to take a very explicit volitional act to reactivate his little best buddy.

Ch'zathri called up the King and explained the situation. He too agreeed that we cannot let the gentleman roam free. Flitner will take him. So we headed back towards Flitner.

We departed Hoot on 7507.16

Stardate 7507.24

I was looking through reports; Tolland Gratian, the smuggler from whom we got our second drive, was found dead on Jemison. He had been murdered in broad daylight in public with, oddly, no witnesses and no leads. We know that Jean Carlson is the crime boss of that world, and if you do anything without her getting her cut, bad things happen to you. Our best guess, therefore, is that he somehow crossed Carlson. I lost my bet with Weyer: I claimed he'd be caught doing crimes again. He probably was, but there were no formal charges, so I guess I'm out fifty credits.

Stardate 7507.25

Mannheim approached C'Zathri and said that the implant is as dead as it's going to be. He could operate any time. They headed down to the brig, while I stayed on the bridge, definitely NOT watching whatever might or might not have happened down there.

I later heard that Smith agreed to limited surgery. The doctor reported that the surgery was more difficult than it should have been. The CAM material in his head was not dead and was certainly in contact with the exposed bits that were excised.

Stardate 7508.01

Our snooping network reported that there had been a firefight between Romulans and an Andromedan ship, near Ch'Lestam (we picked this up on our snooping network).

Stardate 7508.09

From the same general region, we picked up one encrypted message. It was a report that there is dilithium on Penchan II. We'd suspected as much, but now we know, and we know that the Romulans know. They themselves don't need dilithium because they have singularity drives.

Stardate 7508.10 - Flitner V

We arrived at Flitner on 7508.10.

We met with the king and handed over the prisoner. He held a dinner party in our honor. Only Corbin was there, and he seemed slightly unhappy with his father. I did a terrible job of asking about Corbin's wife, and basically got exiled to the bar for the rest of the evening.

Nider and Corbin felt like they had managed to destroy all the modified grain and got messages to everyone who had taken all of it that got off-planet.

We made another U-turn and headed for Baker's World, departing Flitner on 7508.11.

Stardate 7508.18

Research had continued on the artifacts recovered from lizard poo that had belonged to the miners on moon L23 of Newlin II. One of them turned out to be an implant used to open certain secured doors, connected with a family named Ch'echaqas. Akes Ch'echaqas, an Andorian, was one of the miners. His family is on Satterfeld.

Stardate 7508.24

We received a message from King Nider of Flitner: the Star Productions facility had been destroyed. We immediately called the king. Apparently it was bombed; only a crater remained. Nuclear, or perhaps antimatter. There was some collateral damage, but the plant itself was not in a major city, so dozens-to-hundreds dead. Our friend Dr. Smith was still, at that point, a guest at the King's Pleasure.

Fltiner had no leads. Apparently Smith took it pretty hard, hyperventilating and stuff. I suspect the Andromedans and recommended the Flitnerians scan for CAM; I sent them the data they would need to do that.

Stardate 7508.30

We received another message from very flustered King. Corbin and Smith were both missing. We contacted Corbin's flagship, the Triumph: We gave them the whole dump, and told them, in idiomatic Klingon, "if you find anyone, Corbin and Smith included, with an implant, capture them, hold them without X-ray or IR for at least 28 days, and then interrogate them."

We got a reply, a short message saying "Prince Corbin is OK." Nothing more. That, I surmise, probably means there's a fleet of Klingon warships now operated by the Andromedans. That's bad, but honestly much less bad than the teleporting starship they already had.

The King was not pleased to hear of our suspicions.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.01 : Baker's World, Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds aka Baker's Dozen, The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7509.01 - Baker's World

We finally arrived at Baker's World.

Carly greeted us. The head honcho, President Willis J.F. Baker, has been gone for about a month. In his absence, the other council members are going about their business with one Sot as the second-in-command. The leader's disappearance seems pretty ominous, if predictable.

Willis J.F. Baker's wife has been deceased for some time, and he has a daughter, 16, named Kellie. His daughter is still on Baker's World and her location is known.

We were looking for a relaxing bar where Weyer could indulge his sudden, inexplicable, and slightly concerning, urge for axe throwing. The concierge sent us to ZOUK, an open air venue.

We headed there. The crowd was OK—there were a couple of hot but older Orion women, probably in their 60s. I contemplated it but then Weyer dragged us over to the axe throwing range.

It surprised me that I lost 10Cr to Weyer at Axe Throwing. This suggests he's been practicing, which also concerns me. Then I lost another 20 to Klingons who showed up to laugh at how crappy we were at throwing axes, but then we ended up having a nice time drinking with a Klingon and his wife. Somehow, after Bloodwine and Andorian Ale, I ended up dancing with Weyer. I'm better than he is at dancing, at least. I also attracted the attention of a human woman, who was a good dancer. I bought her a drink and determined that she was kind of a mess in the light, and also that she was trying to play me. So we drank, went back to the floor, danced again, and I moved on.

The official story of the governor's departure: Willis was called to an urgent meeting with someone from Morning Garden. Nothing in the news we could research from Morning Garden indicated anything like that.

Ch'zathri contacted Sot and scheduled a meeting. We beamed down. Neither Sot nor Kellie Baker had implants, and Kellie was sure he's been abducted, since he had been, since the abduction, only communicating by text (this, I will point out, is also consistent with our Prince-Corbin-has-been-infected theory, and medically consistent with "it takes a while for the parasite to learn how to convincingly pilot its host"). Only President Baker went. He took his shuttle, or at least, it's gone. It is not warp-capable, so either he went somewhere in-system, or he rendezvoused with a larger ship that took him farther away.

I invited our hosts to take a chair they couldn't fall out of, and gave the whole horrifying infodump. I offered Vuck for interviews, which was accepted, and offered my own mind for reading by Sot (he declined). I think I made an impression. Ch'zathri placed a call to Morning Garden. Sot pointed out that we have a terrible reputation with BioResearch and WLC; certainly true.

We went down to a secure location planetside and I got busted trying to smuggle in a phaser and communicator, so I had to wait on board the ship.

When the Captain returned, I was informed that we would be detaining Willis on his arrival, and that he would then be remanded to the doctor. I can infer what's going on, and I certainly would have argued against the course of action that I think is being set in motion, but I did not get a say in the matter as the decision was taken higher up the chain of command, and the orders are not clearly unlawful. And despite the fact that I don't like the orders, given the debacle on Flitner, a more utilitarian perspective on the matters of individual freedom and agency versus the well-being of the community has become considerably more appealing.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.02 : Baker's World, Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds aka Baker's Dozen, The Triangle : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7509.02; Baker's World

During Gamma shift, Sot contacted the ship. "I just got a local video communication from President Baker. He warned me not to trust you. He wants me to meet him immediately and insists that I transport onto his shuttle."

Since it was Gamma Shit, Weyer had the conn. "Did he tell you what he wants?" he asked. Sot replied, "No."

Sot gave us the transporter coordinates that Baker had given him: in orbit around Baker's World. Weyer said to him, "under no circumstances beam onto that shuttle." Sot replied that he would stall as long as he could. The senior staff assembled in the briefing room.

We got a passive scan of the vessel, and it was indeed a small shuttle, and the warp coils clearly hadn't been used in quite some time; it had been in-system for a long time (and definitely not to Morning Garden).

We agreed that we should beam onboard right after doing a scan, and that we should try to spoof the origin so it looked like one of us was coming from Sot's transporter pad; if the scan revealed we did not have tactical superiority, we could abort and claim technical difficulties obtaining a lock. Three of us could go: I'd beam into the room with Baker (appearing to have come from Sot's pad), and Weyer and Larsen would beam onto the bridge (the layout of the shuttle was cozy: two-person bridge up front, sleeping quarters and sanitation in the back). Captain Ch'Zathri would remain aboard the Odyssey.

I briefly considered that this could be a set-up, to catch Starfleet performing an abduction. But a little tactical consideration revealed that that didn't seem likely. This ship had been in-system for months.

We beamed aboard. I arrived facing Baker, and immediately said, "Terribly sorry, President Baker, but please raise your hands and show me the back of your neck." He raised his hands, but rather than turning away, turned to face me.

I heard the "bamf" and felt the overpressure as something, presumably an Andromedan robot, appeared behind me. At the same time, the shuttle lurched as Captain Ch'Zathri took it under tractor. I fast-drew my phaser, but as it turned out, that wasn't fast enough.

Larsen unloaded his X-Ray laser at the robot, which he could see was a Cylinder Robot. A post-mortem analysis revealed that five of his ten shots had hit it, enough to render it nonfunctional.

Willis immediately vanished: "pop" and slight underpressure. I captured that on my bodycam. I don't think we've seen parasites capable of teleporting their hosts, so either they have new abilities, or something else was watching to remove him.

In retrospect, I should have beamed down with a Phaser I aimed but with my hand at my side so my beaming-in-appearance would not have betrayed my intention, and stunned first and conversed later. But that would have been a lot to have put together by intuition.

I immediately requested that Ch'zathri warn Sot and Kelli Baker.

Quick research onboard the Odyssey revealed that on 7507.31, this shuttle left from Baker's residence to a remote location, where it stayed for a month. About half an hour ago, it moved into orbit, where we encountered it. A scan of its former location revealed only indigenous life, and, crucially, not a radioactive crater, so Larsen and I immediately beamed down, leaving Weyer to ensure nothing untoward happened to the shuttle until the Odyssey could get it into a bay.

On the surface it was dark. All I found are depressions where the shuttle had obviously landed and had been sitting. The grass under it was unhealthy; Larsen confirmed that that's about what you'd expect if you kept it in the shadow of a shuttlecraft for about a month. Then we found other indentations—fresh ones—nearby: something else just landed a few hours ago. The chlorophyll scent from recently-crushed vegetation was still notable.

Scans revealed no sign of nearby habitation. We concluded that some other vessel had, in the last few hours, brought the president back so he could board his shuttle. I measured the indentations (two linear, nearly-parallel depressions) to figure out what kind of ship that had been. It was clearly an auxiliary vehicle, perhaps a warp sled, that had landed on its nacelles.

To summarize information I learned slightly later:

While Weyer was being brought back to the Odyssey he found a single dot robot on board the shuttle; it was initially in the bridge area with Weyer, not where Baker had disappeared from. It was about 2mm in diameter. He tried to catch it and it darted away into the back room. Whereupon, Weyer tried a magnetic gizmo, whose total failure revealed that the dot robot was not ferromagnetic at all. Next he whipped up a gizmo to generate a small and shrinkable force field, and managed to trap the robot in that. That provided us with our first working sample of a dot robot.

Larsen determined that it was a graviton emitter (!). It was mostly Comstock Antenna Material but also had some contragrav and sensor hardware. It was bobbing and weaving around, agitated. I wondered whether it was more like a dragonfly (that is, a fully autonomous creature), or was it more like something larger's eyeball?

Weyer, after some prodding, attempted to mind-meld it. It turns out that the dot robot is halfway between the two: although autonomous, its only job is to convey information, which it believed it was still doing.

At that instant, the (perhaps "an") Andromedan mothership popped into view. That was our signal that it was time to test the anti-Andromedan weapon that the Captain had spent so long developing.

Larsen scaned the ship to see if Baker is onboard, and found no human lifesigns onboard.

The Andromedans grabbed our starboard nacelle with a tractor beam. Captain Ch'Zathri ordered evasive maneuvers. I ordered the anti-Andromedan beam brought online. Larsen tried to break the tractor lock but it didn't quite work. Then Larsen supplied me with good aiming data. My shot was on target, and it seemed to be a good one: their energy absorbers did not compensate and we could see that the enemy ship was damaged.

The tractor beam released us, and the Andromedan ship then vanished,

I feel like that is a victory for us: we got a good hit in and they did not. We had some minor damage from being shaken, but nothing major, and a few minor casualties—nothing so serious as to cause anyone to be unfit for duty. Their attack mode seemed to have been attempting to worry the ship to death, like a terrier.

Now that we knew what we were looking for, we found the dot robot relatively easily. This one seemed confused and not to be transmitting. We hoped to be able to work through it to determine where the mothership went.

This one is confused and not transmitting. I asked if we could decode the transmission protocol. Being able to spoof sensory data to the Andromedans would be an enormous tactical advantage.

In order to do that, though, first we would have to understand what channel the transmission was using, so we would have a signal to analyze. And that turned out to be a much harder problem than expected. The only reason we knew that one thought something was receiving its transmissions (we never determined whether it was correct), and the other one was confused, is that Weyer was somehow able to interface his mind to theirs.

We ruled out a whole bunch of possibilities: the transmissions were not anywhere on the EM spectrum, were not neutrinos, and were not gravitons (there were some weak graviton emissions, but that was not the signal). None of our more-traditional psychics, whether Vulcan, Human, or Bajoran, could sense anything. They also all noted that they've never heard of being able to psychically link with machines, and as far as they know Weyer is completely unique in possessing this ability. Since Weyer doesn't know what the physical basis for that communication is, no one does.

Stardate 7509.03; Baker's World

The shoe dropped: BioResearch started advertising the Little Buddy. That should be our cue to go back to Comstock and destroy their crystal.

The Odyssey can do Warp 6 in an emergency, Warp 8 if we're willing to take some risk. Warp 8 it will be: 15 days travel time.

Captain Ch'zathri alerted Starfleet of the intelligence, our plans, and what we'd learned in our last few stops. Interception of the message was a much smaller threat than Starfleet not learning what was going on.

During the journey, I thought a lot about BioResearch, about what they'd done on Meadow, and about Utilitarianism, and I found myself willing to take a more nuanced position with respect to collateral damage.

Station Chief Charles Kennedy : Subspace Communiqué to Lt. Cmdr. Semak, Starfleet Diplomatic Corps, Baker's World : Stardate 7509.07 : Science Station, Colil V, Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds (AOFW) aka Baker's Dozen, The Triangle : AOFW Science Council

Captain Ch'zathri and the USS Odyssey recently averted disaster here. Preserver technology unexpectedly brought an alien object into orbit around Colil V. Five research scientist immediately beamed into the object. Contact was lost and could not be re-established. A squad of AOFW ground troops was then sent in after them. Contact was lost with them as well.

The USS Odyssey was in the area, so I contacted them for help. Captain Ch'zathri was most helpful and understanding regarding the discretion required by the nature of this station's research. He sent a shuttle which managed to obtain sensor data about the object which confirmed all the researchers and military personnel that had beamed aboard were dead. With his and his senior staff's assistance, we were able to return the alien object back to its place of origin.

Captain Ch'zathri and the crew of Odyssey, especially Cmdr. Weyer and Lt. Larson, acted with competence and bravery. Science Station Colil V is in their debt.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.17 : Comstock, The Triangle near Federation border : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7509.17; Comstock

We arrived at Comstock. I proposed we go in cloaked, and direct all power to using the anti-Andromedan beam on the Comstock antenna: no negotiation, no parlay, no communication before we opened fire.

Then once we got that thing gone, we could fight off the Andromedan warship that would have no doubt appeared, and after that, try to find Worthington and whoever's taken his Faustian bargain. First thing, though, would be to get rid of that antenna. Could we take it out before it teleported? Unclear, but even teleported it would be denied to Worthington.

The captain had received a reply from Starfleet: they agreed that the CAM material posed an existential threat. Use, and initiation, of force, had been approved. It's nice to know that if we survive, we probably won't be court-martialed.

The Captain thumbed through his rolodex and got in touch with journalist Allison Wong, whom we'd met in our travels; young, ambitious, and easy on the eyes. She told us there were nine people who had initiated the procedure; the facility was in Comstock City and she provided the address. Further, we explained the high degree of risk, and she still agreed—in fact, nearly insisted—to be embedded aboard the Odyssey during our attack. She even wrote up a piece with (only slightly-sanitized) evidence accusing BioResearch of malfeasance, and we're going to time the attack for that being published.

A few hours later, we got into position, decloak, and fire beams at the CAM material, which was thoroughly pulverized and fell into the dome.

As predicted, the (an?) Andromedan ship appeared. We went to Red Alert and raised our shields, and then maneuvered to get the city out of the line of fire. Lt. Commander Weyer acquired a sensor lock, and I offhandedly mentioned to Wong that our continued survival was dubious and she might want to go live with her broadcast. She nodded and tweaked something, so I think that millions of people soon will have seen an Andromedan ship in combat with a Starfleet vessel. Even if we don't make it through this, it will be a lot harder to pretend the Andromedans don't exist.

The Captain allocated more power to our anti-Andromedan Custom Weapon. Although we had a sensor lock, the range was still too extreme. We jockeyed for position for a while, each missed a shot or two, and then they managed to get their tractor beam onto us and started pummeling us; the shields didn't hold, and we took some hull damage. After some time, I got a shot on target, which got through their absorption field but which their armor took. A second shot got through their armor and did some damage, and, as seems to be their policy when they take damage, they teleported away. We found the expected dot robot with little difficulty.

One thing, not terribly surprising, we could immediately see from the sensor sweeps: we had exposed the interior of their ship and there was no atmosphere inside.

Miss Wong handled herself with aplomb, and indeed seemed almost unnervingly invigorated after the battle.

Immediately upon the Andromedan ship's departure, we beamed into the BioResearch headquarters facility. As soon as we materialized, I noticed a sphere robot; I ordered Lt. Larsen to terminate it with extreme prejudice using the X-ray laser he loves so much, which he did with alacrity.

The rest of us double-checked that our phasers were on base cycle stun, and forced the door.

Captain Ch'zathri's communicator chirped; Comms reported that ground stations had targeted the Odyssey, and it was gaining elevation to get out of the way of their attacks.

Inside the office, we saw two cylinder robots near the door, a sphere robot on the far side of the room, and also on the far side of the room, Worthington behind his desk.

I charged through the door, leapt over a sofa onto his coffee table, and hit him with two stun shots. One cylinder robot missed me, and the other sphere and cylinder would have hit me, but I've gotten pretty good at dodging incoming fire.

One of the cylinders dodged the Captain's shot.

Lt. Larsen opened up on another cylinder robot; it was very badly damaged but still in the fight. Lt. Cmdr. Weyer hit it with a Phaser II on disintegrate, and that did nothing at all. Good thing Larsen brought that X-ray laser.

I kept charging Worthington and put three more shots into his face. He was still conscious but very dazed.

The sphere tried again, and again I dodged.

The undamaged cylinder then shot Captain Ch'zathri, who yelled. Evidently some damage got through. Then he went a little berserk with his Phaser Rifle, and the second cylinder was ridiculously damaged but still floating somehow. Larsen delivered another barrage, and that robot too was still miraculously up and fighting. Those cylinders are tough.

I executed a baseball slide into cover behind Worthington's desk and readied an EMP grenade. The sphere robot sizzled my armor a bit, but nothing got through. One cylinder shot at Larsen, who dropped to the ground to avoid the shot; the other cylinder missed Ch'zathri.

I activated the limpet magnet on the grenade and underhanded it to stick to the spherical robot, and kneeled on top of Worthington. He looked terrified. Maybe he had started believing the terrible things he'd been telling everyone about us.

The cylinder got a good shot in and burned Larsen pretty badly. He was still up and fighting, but that wound would need medical attention.

Someone on the other side of the room had tossed an EMP grenade into the middle as well. Both grenades went off, and the robots froze up. My phaser was down but my communicator was still working, as, somehow, was Worthington's computer. I could see it had security controls onscreen, so I quickly dropped the denial field.

Meanwhile, Larsen had pinned one of the cylinders and was gutting it with his knife. I called for us to be beamed out: in addition to us, all three robots, Worthington's desk and computer, and Worthington himself. Also, at Larsen's insistence, all the houseplants, which he was ranting knew all the secrets. I think he's probably just insane, but on the other hand, he does know a lot more than I do about plants, and also it's generally not a good idea to antagonize someone who just went nonlinear with an X-ray laser and is currently hacking away at the insides of a killer robot with a combat knife.

We quickly got Worthington into the brig behind a containment field. The sphere robot (functional) and the dead cylinder robots are in fields in engineering, and the houseplants were delivered safely to the bio lab. Doctor Manheim quickly patched Larsen up enough to be fit for duty, because we felt we had no time to lose. We must next go down to the surgical facility, drop whatever transporter-and-scanner denial fields they have up, beam aboard the eight cryobeds and their occupants, and then incinerate the facility, all before Comstock can mount an effective defense. So far we've done this without civilian casualties, and we'd like to keep it that way.

Once we have the surgical subjects secured, we will need to formulate a plan. We've probably decapitated the serpent for now, although there are obviously still Andromedan agents operating. However, with the major antenna destroyed, and Worthington and his eight larval lackeys in custody, we might have bought ourselves enough breathing room to get him back to Federation Space to stand trial.

I invited Miss Wong (after explaining the risks) to accompany us on what we expected to be the final phase of our operation on Comstock. She was very enthusiastic about the idea.

Lt. Cmdr. Weyer went down to the brig and emerged with possession of Worthington's passwords. I wasn't there. I'm going to assume he's just a lot better at interrogation than I always believed.

Our plan was to beam down to the facility, drop the field preventing transporter access, take the beds, leave, and destroy the place. It didn't turn out quite like that.

We beamed in, and there were two operations staff waiting for us. One of them missed me with his shot, and I stunned him. Captain Ch'zathri told the other one to put his hands up, which he did. Disabling the fields was trivial given that we had Worthington's credentials.

We could immediately see that there was only one person still alive in the beds, as well as one extremely freshly-dead, and blood all over the beds. There was a spider robot hovering over the bed that still contained a living human, as well as two cylinder robots and a sphere.

We went in. Robots shot me, I failed to dodge, but the armor mostly took the hit. I had a small burn, but nothing to worry about or even really impede me. I went all Larsen on the Spider Robot, but it dodged pretty well. I got a couple shots in, but didn't do much actual damage.

I could see that the blood was the result of the CAM implant being extracted from the brain with no regard for the patient. Apparently the robots are in retreat and taking the material with them.

I dodged another attack, but the other cylinder robot shot the captain and wounded him pretty badly. The sphere shot at me and I dodged it.

I opened up on the spider robot again, doing much better this time: ten Disintegrate-C shots on target. It was not yet down. Everyone else was concentrating fire as well.

The Captain took another (less serious) hit, but at least the spider robot finally went down.

A cylinder robot forced me to dodge so I fired a very irritated ten shots at it, of which seven hit.

We finally got the robots all down, and got the beds, corpses, and barely-corpses transported to the ship. We determined that the live person was an Orion woman, and the just-barely dead one was a human man. Both had had their implants forcibly removed. The doctor told us that he could probably save both their lives, but that they had suffered a huge amount of brain damage and would likely be permanently compromised.

I'm quite glad we had Miss Wong with us, as otherwise BioResearch would certainly have been able to more credibly accuse us of these atrocities. However, now we have real-time broadcast footage of our team managing to save two people and the spider robot actively doing something with the bed of the one that wasn't yet dead (obviously, we're pretty sure that was the last person to get their implant extracted and we got there just before the robot was finished, but that's hard to prove from the video).

Then, after handing over what we had just collected, we discovered that we were not in fact done with Comstock: the Comstock Antenna material from the shattered antenna was being moved away from the antenna site, quickly, in human hands.

We now need to chase down as much as we can as quickly as we can: no mean feat since it's in hundreds of pieces being moved by hundreds of people. I am interested to see how these people are being induced to do what they are doing. Has Worthington already implanted all of the BioResearch management on the planet and these are now the robots' drones?

The collection of the shattered antenna, coupled with the robots' yanking the implants out of the early adopters, suggests that there is a limited supply of Comstock material, and it is worthwhile for the Andromedans to recollect it and regroup rather than just write it off and make more. That in turn suggests to me that we ought to collect as much as we can, keep enough to use for evidence in the upcoming trial, and dump the rest into the nearest star, or, perhaps better, black hole.

We talked through our various ideas to try to contain the rush going on with people carrying chunks of Comstock Antenna Material away.

Eventually we decided the following:

Getting rid of the CAM should be our first priority. We had learned that it was self-organizing, and the more of it existed in one chunk, the more dangerous it was, because it could be smarter. That led to the following: we'd sort our list of known chunks by size, and simply go down the list, beaming each chunk out on wide dispersal so it would be scattered into individual molecules.

Eventually we'd like to get a carrier or two as well, but the material itself is clearly the biggest threat.

Commander Weyer was nervous and had some difficulty tuning in the sensors, but he eventually found a basketball-sized chunk. Our beam-and-disperse tactic appeared to work just fine. We got three more basketball-big chunks, and didn't see any more that big. We then retrieved and dispersed about 10 volleyballs, then 20 or so softballs, working our way down to baseballs, and then golf balls. At this point I set up a duty roster, instructed the officers in the protocol we would use, and got ready to settle down to a long slog.

Captain Ch'zathri got a call from the bridge. Atahl Th'shaannoq, the BioResearch R&D Manager on Comstock, asked for the Captain, who took the call in his ready room.

"We would like you to return Worthington, and you are stealing our proprietary AI tech." "It's an existential threat…" "I am more familiar with this tech than anyone else." The captain used his pad to request that Th'shaannoq be beamed aboard, but there was a sensor scrambler in play (unsurprisingly). Ch'zathri did agree to beam down outside the scrambler zone.

Then Th'Shaannoq said, "This technology is tried, true, well received by Baker. You don't want Baker's Dozen as an enemy, do you? I suggest you treat this more diplomatically." "Our experience says otherwise. If that's all you have to say, no need to meet." Then the Captain hung up on Th'shaannoq.

Senior staff had a brief discussion, and decided it's not worth storming the castle just yet: we would just keep beaming the stuff out into space.

Lt. Fleur reported that there were several inbound ships closing. We went to Red Alert. The ships appeared to be Federation design and local. Lt. Ericsson hailed them, and got a reply from a human female: "This Maria Cruz of Comstock Planetary Defense Force. You are no longer welcome in Comstock Space by order of the planetary government. Vacate or you will be fired upon." "This is Captain Ch'zathri of the USS Odyssey: I advise you to stand down. We are on an urgent emergency mission to neutralize a threat to the Federation as well as this sector of space." "I'm sorry, Captain, but I have my orders."

The Captain was not going to fire on the planetary defense, so what we've done already will have to be enough. He told Cruz he was going to send her the dossier about the Andromedan Conspiracy and asked her to distribute it to her superiors. She seemed very relieved that she wasn't about to die defending her planet, which would have been the inevitable outcome of the Comstock Planetary Defense force attacking the Odyssey.

The Odyssey retreated to just a little beyond the outermost planet in the system. The Captain would stay with the Odyssey, and I, Weyer, Larsen, and Ms. Wong, were going to take the warp sled, cloaked, back to Comstock.

Finally I got to get my Bad Space Pirate persona on. I to assumed my disguise as the impeccably-attired John Shaft, the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks. Our street names for the purpose of this mission were Shaft, Larcenous, and Jay, with Ms. Wong being Cat. The warp sled got a poison-green metallic-flake paint job and was rechristened the Virginia Creeper.

The hole in the dome had been repaired and the Comstock security systems were back in place: sensor dead zones and so on. At the port we found four individuals arguing with the dockmaster, who would not let them leave: a human female, 2 Klingon females, and a Vulcan female.

The Vulcan said "I'm leaving." "We'll tractor your ship." "You'd be wise not to." They port authority claimed the delay would only be a few minutes.

The Klingon captain was clearly looking to burn off some frustration, and after a bit of flirting, invited me aboard her ship. I noticed her Klingon crew was trying to smuggle a tennis ball-sized chunk of CAM material. I gave her the dossier and explained that this was a bad idea, but after all it was her ship. I also strongly advised her to not put it into her own brainstem, or let any people she liked do the same.

The rest of the crew noted that sphere robots were conducting the search in conjunction with the Comstock Port Authority. Everyone was allowed to leave. Was the robot calling the search shots? Was it teleporting the CAM away?

The second Klingon captain proclaimed: "you're not searching my ship. If I knew that was the kind of treatment I'd get, I'd take my business elsewhere." She walked to her ship, and seemed unaware that she was being followed by a sphere robot. So I shouted, "Hey, lady, what's that thing behind you?" She pulled her gun and shot the Orion dockmaster, who returned fire. Her shot hit, and he went down; she ran into her ship with the robot following, and the engines came online and her ship departed.

Larsen said to the human woman, "seems awfully chaotic here." "I've never seen it like this. BioResearch has gotten on the bad side of the Federation." "I think it has something to do with their new Personal Assistant implant. Are you looking for a piece?" "Not out here with all this commmotion." "Please join me on my ship."

I told her, once we were aboard, "I'm always looking for a piece. Might also want to buy some of this crystal." I did my pitch, told her it was dangerous, gave her the dossier, and failed to change her mind.

We then approached the Vulcan. Larsen asked her "do you have any crystals?" "I might." "Yes or no." "What are you offering?" "I want to know who's got a lot. Kilograms. Plural." "You're late. It's been picked through." "I'm under the impression someone got quite a score." "We managed to come away with far less than a kilo."

I asked "how much do you expect to realize per gram?" "2000 Cr". Huh. That price is right up there with expensive drugs or enriched uranium. I gave her the dossier and pitch too.

The ridiculous price implied two things: first, the amount available for implantation was not a lot, and second, we destroyed a hell of a lot of value really quickly.

We reported in, and Captain Ch'zathri had a very interesting idea: what if the searches were planting material to get it widely dispersed off-planet? If not, what were the sphere robots doing?

The only CAM we could detect in the spaceport wass on the four previously-identified ships.

We headed into the city and looked for more CAM, but did not find any. It seemed conspicuously absent, and Lt. Cmdr. Weyer actually saw a piece go away. We suspected that the Andromedans were teleporting it out. He confirmed that.

We surmised that if any non-Andromedan had anything to do with this, it would be Atahl Th'shaannoq.

As we made our way to his office, we saw sphere robots everywhere. They had the entire city under surveillance.

I saw a cylinder robot pop in, zap someone with an energy weapon, and then go down to them. We planned to scan for CAM again, to try to catch a robot in the act. This could have been worse: the Andromedans were clearly retaking their material and getting out of Dodge.

We got to the site: it was an Orion male, dead, and longer carrying CAM.

We reached the facility. The sphere robots did seem to be paying us any extra mind. I forced entry.

We found the chair that the Th'shaanoq contacted us from; we hacked into it and discovere he met with potential CAM implant clients here. When I forced entry into a further room there was an explosion, and I was shocked into unconsciousness.

I came to, briefly, but my memory is very patchy. I remember sphere robots, and Weyer dodging energy weapons fire.

Later I found out that we vaporized a bunch of CAM, and captured Th'shaannoq. Weyer wanted to verify the contents of a cylindrical storage device that might have housed a robot.

We headed back to the spaceport, and a sphere robot and some dockworkers searched our ship; it had no CAM, so we were free to go.

We rendezvoused with the Odyssey and set course for Starbase 234.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.18 : Comstock, The Triangle near Federation border : USS Odyssey

Lancelot Worthington, III Interrogation

Accompanied by Lt. Lee, the ship's counsellor, I began an interrogation of Worthington. I explained our situation and he replied that the material had been present for years with nothing bad happening. I asked him how long.

The antenna material appeared on 5510.17; 5101.01 was when Worthington was made chief. So this was definitely something that happened on his watch. I wondered how it became the tentpole of the Comstock dome, but that information was not forthcoming.

I asked him, "What's it like having one of these in your head?" "Just like it says in the brochure," was the unsatisfying reply. Worthington wanted to talk to the Captain, who obligingly came down to the brig.

"You, Captain, are obviously concerned with the welfare of the Federation. As am I." Worthington claimed to be the most influential Federation citizen in the triangle, and said that he could make things go well or poorly for the Federation. He threatened: Unless I and my associates are released…we will go public with the fact that the Odyssey has Romulan cloaking technology.

Lee pulled us aside and suggested that appealing to Worthington's swollen ego, and acting as if we were intimidated by his brilliance and charisma, might get him to open up better than a more straightforward approach.

His body language indicated that he believed he would honor that agreement. Worthington has had his implant for decades, or at least a very long time. The captain demanded some assurances of its harmlessness. "The material, when handled properly, is of no danger." That, of course, was a bit of a canard: no one is claiming that it's toxic, just that it's an Andromedan consciousness when there's enough of it, and that when stuffed into your brainstem, it can impel you to do awful things.

Captain Ch'Zathri called him on that: "Perhaps you could explain the negative experiences of some implanted individuals." "The implant makes you neither more nor less ethical or moral," was his reply. I'm pretty sure Vuck, without the implant, wouldn't have killed his family. On the other hand, I can believe that Taggar would have ordered a genocide of peaceful Vulcans simply because it amused him.

Worthington seemed to be honest when he said not only that if he is given immunity he would scrub the records of decloaking, but also, and more importantly, help us against the Andromedans. That's the first time he's admitted he knows anything.

We had a bit of a standoff, but my position is that it's not like the release of that information would tell the Romulans much of anything they didn't know. I mean, the cloaking devices must be all over the place if we lifted one from a two-bit smuggler hassling Phylosians out in the middle of nowhere. The Romulans aren't stupid; they know that cat's been out of the bag a long time. Worthington further claimed that he possessed more knowledge of the Andromedans than any other individual, which might well be true.

Lt. Cmdr. Weyer was at the interrogation but didn't say much. Meanwhile, Lt. Larsen checked out the houseplants. The two plants from Worthington's office are constructs, in the pots of the original plants. The real plants died on 5504.22. Did they dry up and die when Worthington went away for the surgery? Or did he decide he didn't care about the plants when he came back?

Captain Ch'Zathri called a meeting for his senior staff, and Lt. Lee, in his ready room. Our recommendation was generally consonant: don't take the deal. But do tell Worthington that we've run it up the flagpole and are waiting for a reply. The Captain did exactly that, along with a strong recommendation that he be ordered to deliver Worthington to a facility in Federation Space, such that we can truthfully tell Worthington, "well, we asked, and we were told the decision to grant you immunity is above our pay grade."

I wanted to interrogate T'shaannoq next.

We went back to Worthington and he, wisely, declined to answer further questions until we had Starfleet's reply. I and Lee then departed to interrogate T'shaannoq.

Atahl Th’shaannoq Interrogation

T'shaannoq has had his implant 20 years. He got it at the same time as Worthington did, from Sok, a Vulcan, who had an implant himself. Revolutionary, Th'Shaannoq said. WAY beyond the current state of the art. He described Sok as "crazy". Was he an Andromedan plant? We know that the Andromedans can assume humanoid form if they need to.

I asked him the subjective experience question. "It's…better," was his also-not-very-helpful reply.

Lt. Lee advised that T'shaannoq seemed to be heavily invested in doing the science, and that appeals to logic would work well on him.

T'shaannoq said that his research has been mostly focussed on the Little Buddy, rather than on DANA. He claims that the Andromedan tech will have far wider application than just wearables. I can't really disagree, since the complete extermination of organic life in the Milky Way would indeed be a very broad application.

He told us that the Meadow DANA production facility had been acquired over a year ago. I presented him with our lock-and-key hypothesis. He prevaricated a little that he didn't know that other places would be using DANA to commit genocide. I asked him who might have wanted that, and his only suggestion was Sok. It does seem a little odd that he's still enthusiastic about his own implant if he got it from the same person he suspects is the mastermind behind the genocide.

Weyer told us the CAM acted neither like machine nor humanoid minds, but somehow also sort of like both. He tried to focus on Worthington's Little Buddy from the guard's office, and determined that there was not much difference between Worthington and his CAM. Of course, since it had been implanted 20 years, there might not be much Worthington left. Worthington's Little Buddy was aware it was not in contact with the mothership, but was not panicking about it.

At this point I think our best course of action is to proceed to Starbase 234. Maybe we should starve the implants of Worthington and T'shaannoq, but that might just leave them vegetative. We should definitely consult the doctor before doing that. I've been studying the law a bit, and I think I can put together a pretty good case. Even if I cannot establish Worthington's direct culpability for the genocide on Meadow or the conjectured attempted similar genocides anywhere the DANA-tainted grain was bound, we can clearly prove that the awful things BioResearch has done on both planetary and regional (e.g. feeding their mining crews to giant lizards) scales happened under his watch and if he didn't know about those things, well, it was certainly his job to know what his reports were doing, and at the very, very least his actions demonstrate highly constructive negligence. But given that he evidently knows something about the Andromedan menace, I suspect that we may be able to prove a more direct link with some more research and deduction.

I'm not sure this is the best course of action, and indeed I feel it veers perilously close to torture, but: given that starving Worthington or T'shaannoq of X-rays and IR is likely to make both the parasite and the host dormant and useless, we might dole out trickle-charges in exchange for information. Once Worthington feels his brain beginning to shut down, he'll be willing to talk. I'm not sure why that feels much worse to me than just cutting off the supply and leaving them in comas, but it does. That might be a question for Lt. Lee. It's also a question for my new study of Federation Law, because that idea feels like something that ought to be illegal—but we've had no concerns about shutting down the parasites entirely while keeping their hosts in medically-induced comas, which is clearly something being done for the welfare of the patients.

We certainly need to investigate who Sok was, where he came from, and where he went. He's our best bet for an actual Patient Zero, and my suspicion is that we will find out that he was indeed a disguised Andromedan.

Further, I intend to recommend to the Captain that we begin including Lt. Lee as a frequent member of our away missions. Her insight into how best to interrogate our captives was very helpful, and she brings a fresh perspective and an incisive mind to our strategy debates.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7509.18-24 : near Comstock, The Triangle near Federation border : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7509.18 - near Comstock

Captain Ch'Zathri instituted a four-shift rotation, adding a Delta shift. This suggested that he expects we will all have to work some serious overtime as the fallout from Comstock develops, which seems highly likely.

We tried to find out more about Sok, but cursory searches didn't turn up anything. Th'Shaannoq claimed that, other than Sok (who brought them the technology), he and Worthington were the first people to get implants, almost 20 years ago. I suspect that Sok was an Andromedan in Vulcan guise, since we know they are able to impersonate humanoid races if they need to.

Captain Ch'Zathri was summoned to the medical bay.

He was told that Thomas Dern, human male, one of the people we rescued from the cryobed after the forced removal of the crystal, was in a vegetative state and will not get better. We will need to contact his next of kin and ascertain their wishes. The doctor advised us that, were it him in the bed, he would want to have the plug pulled.

The other person, an Orion woman, will live, but has severe brain damange and is expected to have an IQ of roughly 50.

The Captain ordered the captives brought to sickbay in order to show them the fruits of their handiwork. I brought them up and offered a little slightly-intimidating video presentation after the doctor had given the medical facts.

Th'Shaannoq was scientifically curious about the videos and not really horrified, but he also clearly didn't feel too good about it. Worthington showed no sign of any emotion. We hatched a plan to keep the brig a little warm, which is a LOT warm for an Andorian, and then in our interrogations, hint that he could have a guarded stateroom if he were to roll over and turn state's evidence against Worthington.

Stardate 7509.19 - near Comstock

Alpha Shift: Ensign Steigler, on Comms: "Captain, you're probably gonna want to see this."

There was a newsfeed from Comstock, showing the "unprovoked attack" from the Odyssey. They're looking for Allison Wong as a Person Of Interest. She really should have accepted our offer to stay on board the Odyssey.

There were civilian casualties, about which I feel bad, but…we did the best we could. And while a few dozen people were hurt, and perhaps some killed, by the shrapnel from the antenna, far more than that were murdered by the robots afterwards.

Gamma Shift. Larsen had the conn.

Ensign Taleia (Vulcan): "Commander, message from Starfleet for Captain Ch'Zathri." Passed along from Larsen to the Captain, who was woken for this occasion. The message came from Admiral Fuentes, who had been the swing vote in our tribunal: "Dealing with the Andromedans is our top priority. We cannot afford to court hostilities with the Romulans. Do what you must to ensure that we are not fighting a war on two fronts."

Interrogation didn't produce much of anything. Sweating the Andorian also was not productive. How much of Comstock leadership is compromised by Andromedans?

I asked Worthington if he was behind the release of the footage. He pointed out that he was in the cell and couldn't have, although had he been allowed to communicate, he could have stopped it. "John's just doing his job," he told me. "John" is John Smith, Bioresearch EVP Operations Branch.

Weyer argued for granting Worthington immunity. I and the Captain disagreed. He made an appeal for Ms. Wong's safety, which fell on receptive ears but hardened hearts. While I do feel bad that she is unlikely to survive the next couple months, we certainly can't turn around to rescue her now.

Stardate 2509.21 - near Comstock

Weyer received an encrypted comm from the Romulan captain of the SC Ujeel, Thuruto, we encountered at the border. Weyer felt that probably not even his bosses knew he sent it. "I feel I owe you this: The Romulans are aware of your cloaking device and your ship will not be safe as long as it has that device. Expect the Empire to come after the Odyssey."

We had a bit of a discussion: if the Romulans want it back, it's served its purpose. We're happy to surrender it, if they catch us before we get into Federation space. If they pursue us into Federation space, we're still happy to surrender it, but we suspect they're not going to go that far: after all, they know we have it, we know they know we have it, even mid-list smugglers have cloaking devices…it may seem like a huge deal in the Federation, but obviously these things have leaked all over the Triangle.

Stardate 7509.22 - near Comstock

Lt. Cmdr. Weyer did not show up for Delta Shift relieving Gamma. He had been last seen in the engineering lab 8 hours prior. I headed for the engineering lab after ascertaining there was no one in Lt. Cmdr. Weyer's room. I got to the robot lab, and the door would not open. I forced entry and discovered Weyer lying motionless on the floor. I glanced around but saw no sign of hostiles, so went into check him. Thankfully, he was alive, so I dispatched Ensign Pud and Lt. JG Johnson to take him to sickbay. I found a few drops of blood on one of the control stations.

I remembered that Topi had suffered a nosebleed and collapse the first time she spent much time around CAM. I collected the blood, glared at the robots, and backed out, locking the door so only senior staff could enter. I'm pretty sure that CAM can somehow psychically attack psychic-sensitive individuals, and I wonder if we really need as many deactivated robots as we have. Perhaps we could keep one or two specimens of each type, and transporter-disperse the remainder?

Sickbay confirmed that Weyer was alive, that his condition matched Topi's after the psionic attack, and if that is what has befallen him, then he should recover quickly and fully. Further, the blood was indeed his, and was otherwise unexceptional.

I wrote up a short report on this incident for the Captain, and then relieved Larsen, to take over the rest of Weyer's shift.

Stardate 7509.23 - near Comstock

I took over Weyer's shift while he was in sick bay, after asking Dr. Manheim to let me know if his condition changed.

Weyer woke up at the end of my shift and I and Captain ch'Zathri went to talk to him. He told us his tale: he had decided to find out why the dot robot thought it was conversing with the mothership, and immediately found himself in contact with a gigantic Lovecraftian intelligence.

The Mind was at least as intelligent as Weyer (by Weyer's own estimation, which given his admittedly-often-correct belief that he's the smartest guy in the room, is very alarming). Its surface thoughts were megalomanaical; this thing viewed itself as, fundamentally, a solipsistic god. The Mind had underlings it was in constant contact with, and Weyer retrieved a memory of an Andromedan ship being attacked by the Odyssey from the Andromedans' point of view. The sensory perception was nothing like humans': no sense Weyer was familiar with, and that experience was sanity-rattling. It seemed that, if the Mind itself was the Captain, or perhaps Admiral, the mind of the full-size Andromedan starship we kept encountering was a Lieutenant or so. Weyer tried to ascertain the Mind's greatest existential fear, only to find that it didn't really have one. It was not worried about its own survival. However, it was very concerned about the destruction of the Comstock antenna: that was one of its Lieutenants and there are not many.

Then the Mind tried to puppetize Weyer, and he realized that it was still in Andromeda! How weird that these beings can instantly communicate over millions of light-years, but don't have warp. Perhaps having effectively infinite lifespans and patience meant they never needed to bother.

Weyer got a glimpse of another Comstock-size antennad on a rockball world with a big red sun, and judging from the lighting and shadows, no atmosphere. This world was in our galaxy somewhere. The Mind tried to slurp Weyer's consciousness again, and still didn't succeed, but Weyer said he began to be pleased with himself that he had preemptively shut himself out of the Odyssey's systems before trying the communication.

Weyer was certain that there is nothing that could induce the Mind to give up and go away. Its entire reason for existence is the eradication of biological intelligence. It was nevertheless concerned about setbacks that could be measured in milennia, and it was unnerved. Comstock really shook it.

The Mind redoubled its efforts, trying to get Weyer to drop the force field around the dot. Weyer tried desperately to find out how it had been beaten before? In their history (so this is not the only Mind!) … a heavily armed ship can take out their ships and fixed antennas, and they know this. The Mind could not understand why it was losing contact with pieces of itself or how to beat that. The Mind itself has never been defeated: if it had it would be dead. Over incomprehensibly long timescales, it's had setbacks—had to cede territory to other Minds, had to rebuild attack forces, that kind of thing. Its greatest concern was, however, why it was losing parts of its network without suffering physical destruction of those parts.

Finally, it got the upper tentacle and took Weyer over to get him to drop the field. Weyer had set up his own contingencies for events like this, and that trigger fired, causing his blackout and preventing him from releasing the robot.

We talked about the sky as seen from the rockball world. Weyer remembered noticing a blue giant among a bunch of M dwarfs where the other antenna was. Larsen took the picture Weyer drew and tried to figure out where that is: "Near Jemison" was his best guess, possibly in Romulan Space.

We sent an encrypted message to Captain Thuruto, and also Carislon (Pirate Queen—well, OK, Mob Boss, but that doesn't sound as cool—of Jemison) and the Luxury Apparel executive we met there, Ejhhynaoth sh'Kikrass, saying we would pay handsomely for information about the precise coordinates of this crystal. We went farther in Thuruto's message and advised him to destroy it if he could.

Stardate 7509.24 - near Comstock

After ascertaining that the BioResearch Operations employees Harvey Adams and Joseph Clark, were no real threat, just two clock-punchers in the wrong place at the wrong time, we decided to put them in quarters rather than in the brig, with very-limited access keycards allowing them access to the mess hall and the exercise room. I authorized the expenditure to pay their salaries to their families while they're away, which may be quite some time.

We also got a report in on the Thing we found way back on 7212.17 we found A Thing. It doesn't eat, and gets all its energy from EM radiation.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7510.01-02 : Zwaalan, Federation space near The Triangle border : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7510.01 - Zwaalan

During Alpha Shift, Ensign Steiger reported: "Captain, we're receiving a distress call from Zwaalan." The weatherbeaten man onscreen waved to a woman, who said "There's a comet on an impact trajectory. Can you blow it up for us?" Zwaalan was nearby, so we got there and scanned the object: it had come from the direction of Federation Spacem and was heavier than the standard dirty snowball. Basically it was a metallic asteroid, but no signs of engineering. It looked like it had come from a binary system, probably ejected by sheer bad luck. We put tractors on it and deflected it. When we called Zwaalan, the woman was quite unpleasant. "Starfleet's so timid! We told you to blast it!" Ugh. So ungrateful, these people.

Stardate 7510.02 - near Zwallan

We had continued analyizing the post-lizard-processing remains from the mining moon in the morgue. We discovered that Tehl th’Othaqes (Andorian male) had some kind of voice synthesizer allowing access to a voice lock protecting glov Jallirs's systems on Newlin III—the prime minister! Wonder what it was doing on that guy. Some kind of spy stuff, no doubt. th’Othaqes's family was on Flitner V, but we decided not to inform them, at least not right now, about this.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardates 7510.13-14 : Starbase 234, Federation space near The Triangle border : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7510.13 - near Starbase 234 - King Kapri Nider of Flitner V Communication

The King of Flitner contacted Captain ch'Zathri with a message: "I'm concerned that Corbin vanished a couple months ago and I think the Klingons are going to attack. I need help." We let him know we were deep in Federation space and promised to tell Starfleet. We told him we would be in touch when we are able. Captain ch'Zathri also contacted Baker's World and said that any assistance they could to render would be appreciated and remembered.

Stardate 7510.14 - Starbase 234 - CAM/Prisoner Handoff

We finally arrived at Starbase 234. About this time, we believe that Worthington and th'Shaanoq should have been suffering from CAM radiation starvation. However, we observed no change in their behavior. My belief is that this particular pair of Little Buddies didn't take over their hosts. So they, themselves, are just genocidal jerks. I found that unsurprising in the case of Worthington.

We carried out the evidence/witness/suspect handover, and we kept Adams and Clark from encountering Worthington although they clearly wanted to. Maybe they're not THAT innocent.

Stardate 7510.14 - Starbase 234 - Meeting with Admiral Fuentes

We met with Admiral Fuentes; I gave my assessment of the sitation. She asked us how anxious we were to get back to the Triangle; the Captain told Adm. Fuentes that Flitner was very concerned with a Klingon invasion and that time is probably of the essence. We have about 18 months left on our 5-year mission clock. Captain ch'Zathri told the Admiral about Thuruto, and I made sure that Starfleet was aware of Vuck and Lilly as witnesses.

Then Captain ch'Zathri, displaying enormous brass balls (figuratively, of course), floated the idea, to Admiral Fuentes, of the pirate crew. What if we were all officially booted from Starfleet for our reckless disregard for human life in the Comstock Incident…and what if we, in our anger, stole the cloaking device, installed it in a ship we stole, and went on the lam? Of course Starfleet would have total deniability. Many of our interactions with the Romulan and Orion elements in the Triangle would probably be made easier, rather than harder, if we were believed to be outlaws and no longer representatives of Starfleet.

Stardate 7510.14 - Starbase 234 - Attempted Abduction of Adams and Clark

I was approached by a Vulcan in a red uniform. "Cmdr. Nyekundu, we have information you might be interested in. Adams and Clark were interviewed by Starbase Security and it was determined that their involvment was so minor that they required no restriction. They are currently planetside at the Magenta Lounge." The Magenta has a reputation for being about as seedy as anything gets here.

I agreed to start my shore leave there. I, Captain ch'Zathri, Larsen, and Weyer all dressed in our shore-leave best and took a shuttle down to the Magenta. We were there pretty early, and the place was largely dead. There were two bartenders, an Andorian and a human.

We found Adams and Clark and bought them whiskeys. They were a little standoffish but they didn't actually hate us as much as I expected. Eventually a human and a Tellarite came in. Meanwhile, Larsen was not holding his liquor exceptionally well. Broni went over and told the Tellarite "Clever ploy, hanging out with a human to make yourself look better," and then "Would you mind moving to this other table, you're obstructing my view of the bar?"

The human replied: "I would mind." "You would?" "I would." "Why? Are you already sooooo verrrrrry comfotrable that you must stay there?" This went on for a bit, with ch'Zathri provoking the pair. "You gentlemen seem to be experienced spacers." "We don't want any trouble," said the human, and got up. Broni apologized for his brusqueness and ordered ale for the table. The human sat down again; the Tellarite went over to the pool table, accompanied by the Captain and Harvey Adams.

I ruminated on how the Captain seemed to like to start bar fights, but on the other hand, it's been a long, tense mission, and there are worse ways to blow off steam. Turns out, I was wrong, and he had sensed something bad was going on.

I didn't see the human roofie Joseph Clark. Fortunately Lt. Cmdr Weyer did, and mind-scanned Alex (the human) and found out he had been paid to deliver our pair somewhere. Thinking quickly, he knocked over Joseph's drink. When Alex left to get another drink for Joseph and Weyer let us in on the plot. I sent Captain ch'Zathri a warning signal. Alex headed back towards the pool table and offered a drink to Harvey. Larsen, who had rallied a bit, shouted "don't drink that, he put something in it." When I hear that I tried to tackle him but he dodged. ch'Zathri grabbed a drink off the tray he was carrying and told the pair they'd better leave, and then Alex droped the tray and tried to shoot me; I knocked his hand aside as Lurv (the Tellarite) also shot at me and missed. They were using pretty standard laser pistols, and they weren't that good with them, so these were clearly fairly small-time thugs.

I threw Alex to the ground as ch'Zathri tossed the beer in his face. Larsen kicked his hand really hard, bones crunched, and Alex dropped his gun. Lurv shot at me again, and again I dodged. That left the Captain in the way of the beam, but fortunately he too dodged. I picked Alex up by the neck. ch'Zathri, somewhat unsportingly, kicked him in the solar plexus.

Lurv was taking aim at me. I turned around, holding Alex in the line of fire, and said, very calmly, "You best be real sure of your aim, son." Broni stated "I said before, and I don't like repeating myself, you'd better toddle back to whoever hired you, before I get angry and get my disruptor out." Larsen asked, "Who hired you?" and Lurv replied "Someone you don't want to cross." I let Alex down and let him leave. Weyer had ascertained that the contractors were hired by BioResearch. We were unimpressed. The orders came straight from John Smith. Harvey and Joseph nearly crapped themselves, but we didn't care. We were already aware that Smith wants us dead.

We regrouped. "Joseph? Harvey?" asked Broni. "If John wants us, we're in trouble," said Jospeh. Harvey nodded. They agreed that protective custody was a good idea, and I explained they were stuck with us for the duration of the evening because that tussle just killed my buzz and I needed to get my drink back on. They knew more about Smith than they wanted to let on, but he's the man who does BioResearch's dirty work, presumably so Worthington can keep his pudgy, pallid, uncalloused hands clean.

Larsen surmised that Smith must think that these guys saw something watching the security monitors. Joseph and Harvey confirmed that Smith has a Little Buddy implanted too.

People started to trickle in and The Magenta turned into a pretty decent party spot, kind of a biker bar. We had a decent time.

Afterwards, I let Fuentes know that Harvey and Adams would need Witness Protection or protective detainment, and and that John Smith needs to be a Person of Interest, and indeed pencilled in as the human probably most responsible for advancing Andromedan operations in the Triangle right now.

Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu : Personal Log : Stardate 7510.15 : Starbase 234, The Triangle and Federation space : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7510.14 - Starbase 234 - Meeting with Admiral Fuentes

THIS DOCUMENT IS SEALED. IT IS ONLY TO BE READ PURSUANT TO AN AUTHORIZED ORDER UNDER THE UNIFORM JUSTICE CODE OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS, UNLESS AND UNTIL I, SHATI NYEKUNDU, OR MY RIGHTFUL HEIRS, DEEM OTHERWISE.

This is likely to be the final log entry from Commander Shati Nyekundu.

We had the requested meeting with Admiral Fuentes.

While we waited I could hear some arguing outside the door. It was the Andorian Commodore who didn't want Broni to have command, Commodore Esiss ch’Eshehlos. "Admiral! Why have I not been invited to this meeting or the previous one?!" "It was not a meeting, but an informal debrief. This is not a matter that involves the starbase in any meaningful way. Your presence here is not required."

She came into the room; I hadn't noticed before how much she pointed when she talked, nor that she only came up to my solar plexus.

"Well, let's get started. I gave your request for an undercover mission serious consideration. To that end, I got your personal profiles from your counselor, Lt. Yolanda Lee. I am concerned that you may not be the best suited to undercover operations. You have qualities that exemplify Starfleet, but…lying, subterfuge, I'm not sure you're up to it."

Captain ch'Zathri replied, "We have employed quite a bit of subterfuge recently, but it is certainly true that we are trained to be bridge officers rather than spies."

"Starfleet is more willing than usual to do whatever it takes to countering the Andromedan threat. I did speak with Lt. Lee and she concurred that you are more … subterfuge-y than usual of late. I have not yet made up my mind. If you can make a case, convincingly, that you are capable of these operations, then I am inclined to grant your request," continued the Admiral.

We started selling it. I went All Sexy-Like, and I think it worked pretty well; I couldn't tell whether she was relieved or disappointed when after making my pitch, I clapped my hands and said "End scene!" in my not-so-seductive voice.

The Captain and Larsen both made a good pitch. So it all came down to Weyer. "What does my profile say?" he asked. "You have a definite drive to be your best. This is not an insult, but you seem clumsy when you have to break rules or regulations." "And that's exactly why my Captain needs me. If we're gonna go out and play pirate, at least one of us needs to stay strait-laced." Gotta admit, I was impressed by that judo move.

Fuentes pulled the Cone Of Silence out of a bag, put it on the table, and said, "OK. You've convinced me." I pulled my HUD eyepatch out of my pocket, put it on, and high-fived the Captain. Fuentes rolled her eyes. "Recovery and Rehabilitation of all CAM-implanted in personnel will become a priority extremely soon. King Nider of Flitner is given to flights of fancy, and an invasion would be unusual for the IKS. But Eric Smith was spirited away by Prince Corbin. That implies an implanted human in IKS space. That is of interest. Taggar as well, and of course John Smith. Captain, have you given any thought to a ship?"

"Why, yes I have. I have a design based on a common Andorian Free Trader, designed to resemble a Vulcan ship…I believe that with my family connections I could arrange for this to look like an Andorian mining consortium business loan."

Admiral Fuentes continued, "I will send word you are not to leave the system pending investigation into your conduct at Comstock. Prior to your criminal trial, you should make your escape."

"There's obviously a good case for stripping me of command, since I acted without orders. Rather than a big public scene, maybe I should be discharged and my bridge crew resign in protest?" I made it known I was happy either way. If we acted as if we believed were going to be charged so we fled, that might sell it better, Larsen pointed out.

We set up some protocols for dead drops, codes for expected events, and clever subspace hacking, but the net effect is, as expected, we would be on our own for the next couple years.

The Captain wanted to take the cloaking device that Starfleet had given us back on Andoria. I asked the Captain if the cloaking device from the warp sled would do, and watched Fuentes' reaction. She had already known about that. Interesting. Captain ch'Zathri agreed that for the size ship we were considering, it should suffice.

The cover story while ch'Zathri's ship is prepared is that the Odyssey is being refitted, and we're helping with the case against BioResearch. After that we expect to be told that ch'Zathri is being dishonorably discharged, the senior staff will resign, and we will "escape" before the trial.

I'm going to miss the Odyssey. She was a fine ship. Nevertheless, some of the best memories I have of Starfleet came from the time when we were young, eager officers aboard the Stella, without the responsibilities of managing the crew of a 100-person starship.

I do think that the persona of a legitimate businessman with a distaste for paperwork and a gift for quick, if superficial, friendship, will suit my linguistic and diplomatic talents quite well. I look forward to pursuing undercover operations.

We engaged in some design work with the Captain, regarding our new vessel, and once we were happy with its specs and loadout and ready to give the plans to Admiral Fuentes, I asked what it would be called.

Captain Ch'Zatri looked me right in the eye and deadpanned "Vol'rala." That means "Enterprise" in Andorian. Bravo, Captain Bluehorn.

Captain Broni ch'Zathri : Public Statement : Stardate 7510.17 :Starbase 234, The Triangle and Federation space : USS Odyssey

Stardate 7510.17 - Starbase 234 - "Public Statement" transmitted to Allison Wong on Comstock.

The Triangle mission proved to be singularly challenging to the Odyssey crew. While investigating a missing person, a vast conspiracy was discovered between the BioResearch Corporation and a powerful alien race. The Andromedans are a species of advanced bio-robots from another galaxy, intent on dominating and/or destroying all “organic life” in our own galaxy. Their mission had lasted over many hundreds of years as they sought to purge the universe of what they consider imperfection. Working with BioResearch, the aliens sought to implant their cybernetic technology into the brains of millions of individuals, rendering them subject to alien control.

The Odyssey crew worked tirelessly to reveal the criminal conspiracy to the public, battling the Andromedans on several occasions and attempting to unite some Triangle worlds against the threat. In a final and desperate attempt to destroy the Andromedans and prevent the mind-rape of millions of free people, Captain ch’Zathri led Odyssey into an attack on the BioResearch facility on Comstock. Though the attack succeeded in driving the Andromedans away, there were unfortunately several casualties. The event also threatened to cause diplomatic problems for the Federation in Triangle space, as many worlds are already suspicious of “Starfleet interference.”

As a result of these controversies, Starfleet relieved ch’Zathri of his command and ordered him held at Starbase 234 to await court-martial. He managed to escape confinement and, along with several former officers of Odyssey (who had resigned in protest to ch’Zathri’s arrest), fled Starbase 234 in a private spacecraft. Their whereabouts are currently unknown to Starfleet, who along with the Federation disavow any knowledge of or involvement in their activities. An arrest warrant remains active for ch’Zathri on the charges of gross insubordination, destruction of public and private property, assault, battery, and littering. Former Odyssey officers Shati Nyekundu, Jarred Weyer, and Diego Larsen are wanted for aiding and abetting escape from a Starfleet security facility and trespassing.

Shaft (aka Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7510.18 : Starbase 234, The Triangle and Federation space : USS Odyssey

At the start of this log, I was still a Starfleet officer, but this seemed like a good place to start a new series of journal entries.

Stardate 7510.16 - Starbase 234 - Meeting with Vulcan Delegation

I greeted them with full-on Vulcan formal etiquette, intending to give the (correct) impression that I was treating this meeting as if it were an inquisition on Vulcan. Kos, male, was their leader, or at least their face man.

He was pretty harsh. He wanted to know what was being done to track down survivors and make reparations. Then he wanted to know why Captain Ch'Zathri did not save Captain Topi. Ch'Zathri explained the circumstances of the Quantum Filament incident and the senior staff backed him up that the first hint of trouble was when a big chunk of the ship disappeared. I gave Kos the dossier, talked about Taggar, about the slag piles we found on Meadow, et cetera. He wants to know the motive, and I told him that much of this would be in the dossier, but in short: an invasion force from the Andromeda Galaxy. I put Weyer on point to discuss the Andromedan minds and he offered to be mind-melded, and then talked the Vulcan delegation into doing so.

I mentioned "Sok" and asked them to look into whether that was anyone known to them. They said they would look into it.

V'lir performed the mind-meld on Weyer. She was both terrified and horrified, and said "I understand why you felt this was necessary. This is like nothing the Federation has ever faced."

....

Soon, the Vol'rala-to-be showed up at the station. Meanwhile, Starfleet removed the cloaking device from the Odyssey.

Shortly thereafter, the Captain came across T'plar wandering around on the Odyssey. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I wanted to let you know that I regret Kos's implication that you were responsible for the loss of Captain Topi. He has tasked me with going to the quarters where she was lost." "I'll take you there myself. Other than repairs, it's been sealed." Ch'Zathri unsealed it. She videoed the quarters. "She was in here when you hit the quantum filament?" He affirmed that. Then she said "There's something in the bulkheads." It was of course Larsen's vines. Ch'Zathri tried to dance around the whole thing about the vines being there to soak up cloak radiation. "Were you expecting radiation in the Triangle?" she asked. "There have been reports of such." "Andromedan?" "No, before that."

Clearly, T'Plar was not on her way to the captain's quarters. She was probably snooping for the rumored cloaking device. Now that the cloak has been removed, Ch'Zathri offered to show her around Engineering too. "I believe having the technological advantage will be helpful." "Most wars are won by the engineers," he says. "What are all these wires about?" "Oh, this was part of an early attempt to build a weapon against them. Didn't work, I had to go another route."

I Guess T'Plar the "Vulcan" is gonna have to live with her disappointment about not finding the cloak.

The delegation uncovered a Vulcan by the name of Sok, who disappeared 20 years ago, and who had been a member of the Ohzika Danik member "Logic Preeminent". It is plausible that an Ohzika Danik adherent would believe that the Andromedans were preferable to carbon-based life...or it might have just sold itself as a helpful Little Buddy. The Vulcans consider the sect extremists but not terrorists. The Ohzika Danik have never been violent or aggressive.

T'plar gave us the file on Sok. If he proves to be involved, the Vulcan position is that they will support anything we do to apprehend him.

The Admiral said "I think that went as well as could be expected. The information on Patient Zero was welcome. If he is still in the Triangle, consider him a priority on the level of Taggar or Smith."

….

All the CAM material was being transported to labs in Starbase 234. We decided to keep a little, and we further decided to smuggle the cloak from the warp sled, in the bottom of a terrarium or something.

Captain Ch'Zatri came across the captain of the Akehl, who gave him the Andorian-antenna equivalent of a wink, so he's in on it.

Stardate 7510.17 - Starbase 234 - ch'Zathri Charged

While we were moving the CAM, we realized something: the dot that's still in contact is the only one that wasn't transported. So transporting breaks their comms. Well, that's interesting.

Meanwhile, Commodore Esiss ch’Eshehlos brought formal charges against Ch'Zathri, a big laundry list of items, including the obvious ones like assault, gross insubordination, and manslaughter, but also the clearly petty ones of littering and creating a public nuisance. He had obviously been planning this for a while. He escorted Ch'Zathri to the brig. "I take no pleasure from this. You were in over your head and all of this could have been avoided; a jury of your peers will determine whether you acted bodly or rashly." Ch'Zathri replied: "That jury may be difficult to assemble. It's been an honor to be escorted to the brig by someone of your rank." That got under ch'Eshehlos's skin.

Stardate 7510.18 - Starbase 234 - The Escape of the Vol'rala

Weyer fumbled that attempt badly. I wondered briefly if he really didn't want to be a space pirate. Nevertheless, somehow, through some lucky accident, we reacquired a transporter lock and got the Captain aboard intact. We popped the cloak, hit the gas, and jumped to warp.

Welcome to our new career as gentlemen (and lady) of fortune.

Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7511.19 : leaving Starbase 234 for Comstock, Federation space : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7510.18 - near Starbase 234 - Yolanda Stow Away

So there we were, high-fiving ourselves on the escape from Starbase 234, when out of nowhere Yolanda Lee walked onto the bridge, stunning us all. I mean, not with a stunner. You know. We were surprised.

She said she'd resigned her commission too and stowed away (where? This ship isn't really very big. But it's true we didn't do any checking before flying out) Broni explained that one person in Starfleet is in fact aware that we're really deep undercover, which surprised her. Ah well. I told her that if she was prosecuted at the end of this, in the unlikely event we survive and return to Starfleet's good graces, I'd resign my commission and go pirate in protest. She seemed to enjoy that.

Since Allison Wong is continuing to cover the situation on Comstock, she is apparently safe. And as there exists at least a minimum possibility she is implanted or otherwise compromised, we decided not to contact her in advance of our arrival: the element of surprise is to our advantage.

We also decided not to reestablish contact with the regrettable Herbert Lom.

Stardate 7510.23 - near Starbase 234 - Morning Garden Rumor

The news said that Orions are attempting to get Morning Garden (who are also being courted by Baker's Dozen) to form an alliance with the Syndicate. That outcome does not seem likely.

Stardate 7511.02 - near Green - New Starfleet Directive

Broni received an encrypted message from Admiral Fuentes: "Federation requests bioscans of Romulans, the deeper the better." Well…there's a nonzero chance we're going to have to render medical aid to some Romulans when we try to take down the next antenna.

Stardate 7511.19 - near Green - CAM Cylinder Attacks Yolanda

Yolanda was in the bio lab. She screamed. We all ran down there to find there was now 2/3 of a meter of CAM crystals sticking out of the bottom of a cylinder robot lying on the floor.

I charged it super parkour-style, vaulting over a railing. It shot at me and I dodged.

I got the rest of the way to it and shot it a lot with my Romulan disruptor; those shots had very little effect, because I barely got through its armor. Larsen, as usual, went complete X-Ray Laser Nut on it and annihilated it. I'm not saying his talents are wasted as a botanist, but, like, maybe it would make his career if we could find a planet with, I dunno, sentient plant cave-men who are being preyed upon by T-Rexes or something? So he could protect plants and go berserk with an X-Ray laser on the regular?

I noticed that that region of the lab was definitely warmer than the rest of the lab. That suggests that maybe somehow it was being fed IR at the frequency to energize CAM? Further study showed that this robot was one we had already neutralized, and that it somehow merged with a more active CAM crystal.

That's very concerning. The first thing we need to do is sweep for IR emitters and turn them off…although if they're Larsen's grow-lights, then we need them. In any event, how did the robot get itself down here in the first place? How did the active CAM escape containment? And how was it able to merge with the robot?

I should ask Broni whether it's possible to take all our captured and presumed-defunct robots and just transport them, say, six inches to the left, so that they will definitely not be in contact with The Mind anymore, or at least not until they can get new CAM.

We also need to study that a bit more. It's clear that being transported cuts the robots (and by that I'm pretty sure I mean their CAM) off from The Mind. Combat isn't really the best place to get a transporter lock but now I'm wondering if we could transport a robot we were actively fighting, would it be inert at the other side, or unharmed but no longer receiving orders from The Mind? Further, if transport is death to these things, might that give us another option rather than the sonic weapon?

Oh, but it … well, wait. Huh, this is weird. Th'shaanoq and Worthington were both beamed aboard, and their Little Buddies were still working. And neither one of them seemed impaired (other than reporting being dumber and mentally slower, and really pissed-off) after we starved the Buddies. What if the Little Buddies can only take you over if you never transport after implantation, and the minute you do, The Mind can't use you as a puppet anymore, but all the local cogitation function is still intact? But if it's still inimical I'm not sure how much that helps. At least it denies The Mind remote sensing from each implanted person.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7601.09 : leaving Starbase 234 for Comstock, Federation space : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7511.24 - near Green - Frath Not Responding to Luxury Apparel

We intercepted a message from Luxury Apparel with Romulan civilian encryption. Weyer couldn't decrypt it, but I knew a thing or two about standard Romulan encryption practices and we got it cracked. Comms to Frath Khivrof are going unanswered. He was the Tellarite in the crew we bought the ship-mounted disruptor from on Jemison, and probably more to the point, we'd told him about CAM crystals and that they were valuable. This doesn't bode well for Frath.

Stardate 7511.29 - near Green - Starfleet Protocol to Communicate with Andromedans

On a Starfleet channel, in the clear, we heard that a new Starfleet Protocol had been issued: The Federation requests that every reasonable effort be made to communicate with the Andromedans to reach a diplomatic solution.

Oh my, as Lt. Cmdr. Hikaru Sulu would say.

Broni pointed out that Starfleet rarely likes to come out swinging, and given the events of the last few years, they might well be thinking, "hey, these could be the guys that built V'ger."

Stardate 7512.09 - near Zwaalan - Romulan(s) Concerned About Luxury Apparel

We intercepted another encrypted message from the Romulan-border-sensor-net. Again it was Romulan civilian encryption, and apparently having been paying attention while I cracked it last time, Weyer successfully decrypted the message. It was someone concerned about Luxury Apparel, who was insisting that the Romulan Government do something about it. If we pass that message on to the arms dealer who works for them that we know, we could a) move some cargo to pay the note on the ship, b) make some valuable contacts, and c) establish our bona fides as Bad Dudes. We dealt with Tanya Kelly on Garnon for personal weaponry. If we too fail to find any of Khivrof's crew on Jemison, she's another possible contact in Luxury Apparel to start making some money.

Stardate 7512.14 - near Zwaalan - USS Mars Parasites (and Invader Swarm at Zwaalan)

We received a distress call near Zwaalan. I bet Lee 10 Cr that it's Lom, but alas it turned out to be Mark Carroll of the USS Mars. They had some sort of parasitic infestation, and were at risk of hull breach. We've dealt with space barnacles before. En route we received a second distress call. King Vassily Illievich of Zwaalan was reporting an Invader Swarm From Space requesting assistance. We clearly lack the resources to turn back an invasion fleet, but maybe we can help the Mars.

The USS Mars was covered in crystals, rather than the sheen we've seen before. The material was not CAM. The best plan we could come up with was a light dusting with our phasers to see if we could knock the crystals off. The Zwaalan system has a gravity well which should be effective in removing them from the hull, but given the second distress call, the Mars shouldn't enter the system until it's spaceworthy. Weyer did a masterful job of confounding their scanning with his electronic warfare skills, and we took their call on audio only.

We were very cagey, and did not answer his questions about who we were or why we were running without a transponder, which Captain Carroll reminded us was illegal in Federation space. Then he started heating up his tractor beams, and Broni barely avoided the beam as went go to warp. You're welcome, asshole.

Stardate 7512.21 - near Zwaalan - APB Out for Rodney Maremaunt

We received a UFP APB for Rodney Maremaunt, corporate executive, Maremaunt Corporation, VP for Consumer Relations. His picture made him look like a grade-A douche. The APB declined to specify his crimes, but I couldn't forget a sleazy face like that; I know this man and what he did: he stole plans for the FP-1 Photon Torpedo.

Stardate 7512.28 - near Comstock - Allison Publishes Broni's Public Statement

The statement Broni sent Allison gots published: in fact she read it, verbatim, with no editing, live on air. That means that she is free and allowed to work, and Yolanda was certain from her body language that there was no indication that Wong was under any duress.

Stardate 7601.09 - near Comstock - K’manatram — Luxury Apparel CEO R'Thlana

We got another sensor-net message, again with standard Romulan civilian encryption. Weyer had no trouble with it this time. There was a lot of chatter about Luxury Apparel, and it contained a new term: k’manatram. We don't know what that means (which given our collective quite high level of familiarity with Romulan language and culture is itself surprising). But whatever it is, it's associated with their President/CEO, R'Thlana (a Romulan, but we knew that).

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7601.11 : Comstock, The Triangle, near Federation border : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

We made the approach to Comstock and found it had better sensors than it used to, and they were emitting positrons. That's not characteristic of the sensors of any of the races I'm familiar with. Could it be PET scans? To find implants? No, Larsen assured us, there are easier and better ways.

Positrons will react with matter and create X-rays&hellips;Andromedans? They'd also be useful for detecting cloaked ships, which seemed like the best bet. We believed that our Romulan cloaking device would perform pretty well against these scans, though.

I called Allison and she asked to meet us at the Tempest like last time. Only thing is, we never met her at the Tempest. This pretty clearly seemed to be a signal that she was under surveillance, so we decided to go to orbit, cloaked, and beam her aboard when we could get a transporter lock.

We did that, defeating a transporter-denial field. She agreed to come with us wherever we were going. Apparently she'd been under house arrest since we departed Comstock.

She told us that CAM research was basically stopped, but there are four Bioresearch managers still operating, Smith among them. Still: Bioresearch is performing no implants without th’Shaannoq. Smith was using Wong as bait to catch us. Broni refused to let me beam him aboard and then into space, despite my entreaties.

Yolanda took Allison down to the galley while Broni reminded us that no one, including Ms. Wong, could know we weren't actually space pirates.

We asked about her captivity. "My only value to them was that they thought you might come back for me." She didn't know if she would have then been eliminated. She felt that her fairly public position might have worked in her favor, but Smith doesn't seem to care that much about public opinion.

We didn't have any immediate way to act against Smith to bring him to justice, which would have compromised our cover anyway. For some reason, simply eliminating the people on my list—I promise, it's a short list—so they couldn't do further harm was rejected out of hand. Maybe we will come up with some way in future to expose his crimes in such a way that the remaining managers will agree to depose him, but they are all also infected with CAM Little Buddies, and we're probably going to need to eliminate the whole cabal. That's a problem for Future Us, though.

We evaluated Schneiter and Meadow. They're both completely under Comstock/BioResearch control, but one of them is a hideous ball of ice and ore, with the only facilities being drab mining tunnels that smell like farts. So we decided on Meadow.

Maybe Broni will let me kill Taggar when we get there. He said I could if the opportunity arose, and maybe we'd have a chance to create that opportunity.

We also concluded that there's a lot of gray area when it comes to our duty to respond diplomatically to Andromedans, both legally and morally. That's good, because I don't intend to let them get the first shot in if I can avoid it. Even when I was more pacifistic, I only objected to harming innocents. Andromedans are by definition not innocent, given Weyer's encounter with their Mind.

Both Smith and Taggar are worthy of elimination if for no other reason than to prevent them doing more harm. Smith's been masterminding BioResearch's dirty work for years (probably including the genocide on Meadow—I don't believe Taggar is smart enough or enough of a visionary to come up with that plan), and Taggar was the man who ensured that the Meadow genocide occurred according to that plan. Sure, in a perfect world that worked the way Starfleet wanted it to, they'd be brought before a jury to face justice for their crimes, but this is the Triangle. I'll have no qualms about killing either of them, in cold blood, if I get the chance.

We proceeded onwards toward Meadow, which should be about a six-week journey.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7602.21 : Comstock → Meadow, The Triangle, near Federation border : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7601.12 - near Comstock - Vulcan Kudzu

We had a spirited debate about the Vulcan Kudzu. If we grew it everywhere throughout the ship, we could stay cloaked 24/7 with no ill effects. Plus it would make our ship really badass if we invited anyone onboard. Larsen offered that it would be easy to both make the kudzu entheogenic, and to engineer it to grow whatever logo was desired on the leaves. This seemed like a product we could sell. Weyer was not happy with the enthusiasm I had to become a drug dealer.

Let it be noted that just because we could stay cloaked all the time doesn't mean it's something we should do.

Then we argued about whether to send a message to the King on Flitner and to Corbin's father-in-law, trying to determine whether anyone had heard from Corbin. Weyer pretty much convinced me that we owed Corbin a debt, since he had indeed been helpful with the Andromedans. However, Broni was not a fan of the idea, since we couldn't get there to help any time soon and it would expose us to some degree.

Stardate 7601.21 - near Comstock - Comstock Subspace Communication

We had already compromised the Meadow relay, but realized that BioResearch comms were going through Andromeda Net. However, as soon as the Comstock Antenna was destroyed by miscreants, a normal amount of communications started flowing again. For the most part it's purely administrative: DANA production was going strong. These comms putatively were coming from Taggar but perhaps not personally from him (that is, actually drafted and sent by an administrative assistant). I found no reason to believe there was any sort of steganographic channel in these communications.

Stardate 7601.31 - near Comstock - Andromedas near Jemison

We got reports of ships appearing and disappearing near Jemison, their description consistent with Andromedan ships. We sent a message to Jean Carislon, Jemison's Pirate Queen, with what we knew about those ships, and offered to sell the anti-Andromedan weapon to Jemison cheaply.

Stardate 7602.01 - Quantum Filament - Topi Memorial

We reached the Quantum Filament. We found, in addition to our warning beacon, a probe of Vulcan design. I organized a little ceremony in memory of Captain Topi. Weyer revealed that he had smuggled a little Vulcan brandy aboard. We poured one out for Captain Topi; I gave a very moving speech that inspired Alison Wong to begin work on a short biographical piece about her.

Stardate 7602.04 - - near Meadow - Jean Carislon Will Broker Anti-Andromedan Weapons Jean Carislon replied to us: "Happy to broker your deal. Are you selling hardware or just plans, did you have a specific buyer in mind? When do you want to meet buyers?" Our answer was: "As soon as possible and whoever is currently running Luxury Apparel on Jemison."

Stardate 7602.08 - near Meadow - Tagar Replaced By James Miller

Jean replied again, stating that she only does face-to-face meetings. She didn't apear to be implanted. Nor did she appear surprised by hearing about Andromedans, nor seem overly concerned. Alas, we're six months out from Jemison, so this plan will have to wait.

While scanning traffic through the Meadow transceiver, we realized that comms with Taggar had stopped. I hoped he had not been eliminated, because I would very much like to have done that job myself. The new communications are coming from James Miller: Miller, previously in charge of the orbital station, had taken over from Taggar. He said, in effect, "Taggar's gone. He took the best yacht. I'm taking over."

Had Taggar been conscripted by Andromedans? Are the Andromedans summoning all their implanted people to muster somewhere? Or had BioResearch pointed out to Taggar that we'd left Comstock, which would make Meadow the next likely port of call for the Vol'rala, and seeing what happened to Worthington and Th'shannoq, and realizing that we were no longer bound by Starfleet protocol, had Taggar made the wise choice to flee from us?

Media suggested that Miller is implanted too, so that eliminated the "mass mustering of controlled individuals" theory.

I was openly discussing murdering Taggar when we manage to find him. This made Weyer extremely uncomfortable. I don't think he is a fan of no-longer-pacifist Shaft, but to be honest, my pacifism was only about refusing to put innocents in harm's way; Taggar has long, long passed any presumption of innocence. Sure, in an ideal world we'd capture him and deliver him to the authorities. But Orions rather famously try hard not to be taken alive, and in this particular case, I really don't mind not going the extra mile to ensure that I do bring Taggar in alive.

Next we discussed the alterations that we had found in the grain grown, with the assistance of DANA, on Flitner V at Star Productions. These looked as if they provided the lock that was waiting for a key to transform the grain into something that would have similar effects to the Meadow genocide plague.

T'atrantine grows only on Meadow, and it's an excellent source of and substrate for DANA. That's why Meadow is the core of DANA production. There's only one DANA conversion plant, as Broni pointed out. I rather like the captain's thinking. We went on a tour of the facility, so we know how it's built and roughly where the sensitive parts are.

We wondered whether Larsen could come up with a way for the "key" to transform the grain into something harmless rather than genocidal? He was unable to give us a quick answer. But if we could replace the "lock" with one that didn't react in the same way as the key&hellips;well, while most of us are well-known to BioResearch, Yolanda Lee is not, if we get the opportunity to do some espionage.

Or, you know, we could bomb the facility, which would at least set BioResearch back a bit. That probably would cause some civilian casualties, and I'm not quite ready to declare that a random BioResearch-employed scientist deserves to die because of his employer.

Stardate 7602.13 - near Meadow - Level 2 Ion Storm

We encountered an Ion storm, 8 days out of Meadow. If we were to detour around it, we'd be 26 days reaching Meadow. The captain decided that we would just plow through it, with the cloak offline. We were doing fine until the EPS conduit to the transporter exploded. While smelly and sparky, it was nothing we couldn't fix before making landfall.

Weyer has gotten deeply unfriendly. I get that he is concerned at my sudden turn away from lawfulness, but he's also been impugning the quality of my job performance and won't stop going on about my unbounded lecherousness. I mean, OK, I didn't exactly cover myself in glory when I went AWOL on Flitner V, and, sure, my curiosity has gotten the upper hand versus my aesthetic sense from time to time (but really, that Tellarite girl was very sweet), but for the record, only one person in the crew of the Vol'rala was reprimanded for inappropriate sexual behavior during our Starfleet careers, and it wasn't me.

Stardate 7602.20 - near Meadow - Allison Wong's Topi Tribute

Allison Wong finished her piece on Topi and wanted to publish it. We decided to access the subspace relay near Meadow, and hack the metadata on the message so that it would look like it came from a ship in the direction of Schneiter, and delay its release a week. We believed that should give us time to get away and muddy our trail.

We needed some new job titles, since we weren't Starfleet officers anymore. Yolanda's position is now "consigliere". Guess that makes Broni "boss", me "enforcer", Larsen "brainiac", and Weyer our "moral compass".

Then Weyer gave me a really nice Afro pick! I mean, it's actually really, really nice. I'm even more confused now, because just a few weeks ago it seemed like he hated me.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7602.21 : Meadow, The Triangle (near Imperial Klingon States) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7602.21 - Meadow - DANA Production Active

We arrived at Meadow. It was different than on our previous visit. It is now more built-out, and they're constructing a DANA station on the moon.

The name "James Gomez" was coming up a lot, and it turned out he was campaigning to be governor. His platform was basically "I'm not BioResearch" although he still appeared to be basically pro-BioResearch, just claiming "hey, we're a real planet, not a wholly-owned subsidiary." Which, you know, isn't quite true, but hey, more power to him.

James Miller was the acting governor. From all the media we could find, he did not appear to be implanted. Larsen decided to become an economist for a day (that guy can pick up skills by reading scary fast) in order to figure out why BioResearch was bothering to build a station on the moon. Maybe BioResearch is worried about maintaining control of the planet, and the moon is safer and prevents leakage of secrets? I was pretty sure the purpose was simply to make sure no one from off-world would need to go planetside.

We did a flyover of the prior DANA production site, and it was still there and still active. That implied that production was mostly planetside, and packaging/distribution was primarily handled on the moon.

We talked to a Tellarite secretary, and then to an older woman, Karen Adams. Adams was the Ttrantine processing plant administrator and was willing to give us a tour. Yolanda pretended to be a product rep from GW Botanics, trying to find a partner for our radiation-consuming kudzu.

Weyer was told he could not record, so I stealthily started doing so through my eyepatch. Yolanda asked about the facility scaling, and during the tour we got a pretty decent idea of the layout.

On Meadow, there was not much overt farming of anything not yielding DANA, but it turned out there was a down-low economy for things that were not T'trantine.

We couldn't find anyone who knew why Taggar left. As far as anyone knew he was pleasing his corporate masters.

Larsen found up to 230 tons of mixed grains we could buy from a farmer, who was delighted for an off-the-books little deal. All we can carry is 30 tons anyway.

Broni went to deal with the farmer, T’soth, a Vulcan woman, and they tiptoed around the whole "where did the population go" question. It seemed like we might have someone to tell the sordid story to. Her questions of "Where are my kin" were answered with "they left on this ship with this flight path..." and she was pretty skeptical.

She claimed to be a farmer, just a regular colonist. Larsen shared the dossier with her. She was taken aback, and saddened that her kinfolk were almost certainly dead, but also grateful. Broni suggested that, even if she doesn't plan on sticking around for the long haul (she announced her intention to leave), that she share the information with other Vulcan farmers with missing relatives, and that she stay long enough to vote in the upcoming election. We asked her about that Romulan term we heard and didn't know, "k’manatram", but she didn't know any more than we do.

I think we're done on Meadow. The only real question before we leave is whether we should try to strike the DANA facility on our way out.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7602.22 : Meadow, The Triangle (near Imperial Klingon States) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7602.22 - Meadow - Andromedan Virus Lab Destroyed

Before we left Meadow, we decided to do some more routine scans. Weyer scanned a region we'd been over before and suddenly detected CAM on or near the surface, where there hadn't been any before.

It appeared to be an underground facility, with several CAM signatures, none enormous. We took the ship overhead and checked it out: several robots, containing CAM, in a facility with some sort of vats. There were no humanoids present, and, interestingly, this facility was not in the BioResearch records.

Broni and Weyer huddled together in Engineering and slapped together a giant EMP grenade; we'd beam it down and trigger it. Meanwhile, further sensor work revealed that the vats were full of T'trantine. This made me immediately suspicious that this DANA was being used in plants modified with the lock-and-key mechanism to trigger planetary genocides, such as we'd found evidence of in the grain intercepted at Hoot.

We sent the EMP device down and detonated it; as expected, the facility went dark. We beamed down immediately.

There were six robots: three spiders, two cylinders, and a sphere. They were all inert. The rest of the team set about destroying the robots and attempting to extract their CAM, while I covered them. Broni did exceptionally well dispatching his spider robot, and we got a huge amount of pristine CAM out of it—more than 100 lbs!

Everyone else was not so precise with their disabling shots, and we found obvious voids where the CAM should have been. Apparently either the robots or their masters had enough warning that something was going on that they were able to teleport the CAM away.

I heard a servo whining in the darkness to the north, and began moving in that direction. I found a spider robot powering up, and zapped it to shreds without trying to collect anything.

Next, I forced entry into each of the vats, and we collected samples from each, and an open-topped one that didn't need forcing. Larsen took the samples for analysis. The facility appeared to be powered via a nearby hydroelectric plant, so there was no reactor to overload. We destroyed the power coupler, then headed back aboard.

While we couldn't overload the reactor, nothing said we couldn't just destroy the facility with our shipboard lasers (well, technically, the laws of Meadow probably said we couldn't). We slagged it and then hid in the cloak while Larsen did his analysis. Meanwhile, we noted with some amusement the bafflement of the planetary authorities that some ship had fired its phasers into the ground and then disappeared.

The first vat was used for extraction of DANA from T'trantine. That's interesting, in that it might imply that BioResearch has cut the Andromedans out of the loop and they are doing their own extraction. The open-topped vat contained waste from the process—effectively, biological slag. The red vat contained DANA and a highly-modified (and truncated) lentivirus. The green one contained DANA and a similarly-modified oncovirus.

My suspicions were confirmed by Larsen: this was the lock that the DANA-infused modified grain (as seen on Hoot) would unlock. Each component of the lock-and-key was individually harmless, but when someone who'd eaten the modified grain came into contact with this, they would develop a deadly (albeit slow-acting) disease.

Fortunately Larsen also said that this research was not ready to productionalize, and might not even have gotten to the point of in vivo trials yet. Looks like we got lucky and caught this particular bit of Andromedan aggression relatively early.

After discussion, we decided we were not willing to cause the civilian casualties that would happen if we destroyed either the primary DANA facility or the orbital facility.

Thus, we headed onwards to Garnon, or Gamon, depending on whether you're Tellarite or Human, and definitely not depending on kerning.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7604.19 : Gamon, The Triangle (near Imperial Klingon States) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7603.01 - near Meadow - Topi tribute

The tribute to Topi came out. It was really high quality. We had a brief celebration in honor of Allison and in memory of Topi.

Stardate 7603.02 - near Meadow - Andromedans at Comstock

We received chatter from Comstock: an Andromedan ship had arrived.

Stardate 7603.13 - near Meadow - Worthington trial

We learned that BioResearch Corp. was distancing itself from Worthington. Spokespeople were making statements like "the Triangle is its own division of BioResearch, and obviously was allowed to operate without sufficient oversight." BioResearch definitely sounded like it was on the defensive.

Stardate 7603.22 - near Meadow - anti-cloaking devices

We heard rumors that BioResearch's anti-cloaking devices had been deployed in the field and encountered in the wild.

Stardate 7603.28 - near Gamon - BioResearch-Meadow communications

We received an encrypted (UFP standard) transmission from the Meadow interception point: "A robot ship was here unannounced. They stayed several hours. They did not answer my hails. In the future, how should I deal with it?"

Stardate 7604.02 - near Gamon - BioResearch-Meadow communications

We got another encrypted UFP transmission: "Try to find out what they were up to, but do not engage them. Youre in charge of Meadow nowshow some initiative. And James, if you use subspace for sensitive content again, youll be replaced." James Miller? Taggar's Executive Assistant. So the sender was very likely John Smith. The fact that the message was encrypted with UFP transmission, and on the Meadow relay at all, suggests either that destroying the Comstock antenna crippled BioResearch's Andromedan-comms backchannel, or that Miller, lacking a Little Buddy, couldn't be contacted with the backchannel.

Stardate 7604.04 - near Gamon - Furry Space Whales

Weyer found biosignatures in open space!

They were really big, and travelling at about 3/4c. They were basically furry space whales, but the fur was an array of antennae and therefore how they perceive the universe. They appeared to be hibernating as they travelled from an unremarkable M Dwarf to Gamon. They have complex internal structure, suggesting organs. They should be at Gamon in about 3.5 years.

Stardate 7604.08 - near Gamon - R’thlana sighting

We received another encrypted message, but this time, not Starfleet encryption but rather Romulan civilian encryption. "R’thlana seen on Geisling." R'thlana is the (former?) head of Luxury Apparel, who is now "k'manatram" (whatever that means).

Stardate 7604.17 - near Gamon - Romulan encryption

We intercepted another Romulan-encrypted message, but we could not decrypt it.

We had done some research on the Romulan word "K'manatram". We were pretty sure it was a noun or an adjective, rather than a proper noun. Our leading theories were either that it was group association, or perhaps an archaic word, no longer in common use. Another idea would be that it was a word for something the Federation had no noun for. For instance, if the sentence in question translated as "The Luxury Apparel CEO is a Space Manatee," and we've never met Space Manatees because they're native to the far side of Romulan space, that would fit the observed data.

Stardate 7604.19 - Gamon - Picked up freight: Ruby from Luxury Apparel

We arrived at Gamon. Research suggested that the Gamonites do not yet know about Space Whales. Larsen felt strongly that we should not tell them.

We were hailed by a Tellarite woman. "This is Ginkaor. Welcome to Garnon."

We went looking for Tanya Kelly, the merchant who sold us high quality personal weapons on our last visit. Jousri, the (tall, about six-one, dark-skinned Romulan) old man in charge of Luxury Apparel operations here, set up a meeting for us, and took us to a transporter pad. Everyone gave him a wide berth.

We were beamed directly into the Luxury Apparel facility, where Tanya Kelly was waiting for us. She remembered Weyer's utter lack of decorum with respect to her missing arm. And she made us an offer: if we'd transport Ruby to Jemison for her, it'd get our berthing fees paid and our foot in the door with Luxury Apparel.

Ruby is a plant-based drug, recreational, requiring climate control, with effects rather like cocaine. It's said to be better fresh. None of us are super-thrilled about becoming drug runners; on the other hand, it could be a lot worse, and we do need to do something to establish our bona fides as legitimate "legitimate businessmen". Once we have the Ruby off Gamon, it should be smooth sailing: very little is illegal on Jemison other than not giving Jean Carislon her cut, which is a mistake we will not make.

Anyway: Tanya told us she had seven tons of Ruby plants to us for carriage to Jemison. She was very pleasant to us. We were beamed aboard the orbital station, and we noticed that Jousri continued to mess with the board after transport was complete. Larsen attempted to take a peek, but Jousri said, "This way, gentlemen," as he headed Larsen off.

I went back and confirmed Jousri had indeed been messaging with the computer interface part of his board. Perhaps he was skimming our data? This caused some suspicion, but I did a bit of acting and sleight of hand to make it look like I had dropped my totally awesome Afro Pick during transport, which I then found and triumphantly displayed. The transporter crew agreed that it was an extremely fine Afro pick, which it is. Thank you, Weyer!

Jousri told us that one Warrum, a tall young Orion, likely with bloodshot eyes, will receive the Ruby. Jousri will handle transport onto our ship.

He asked us for transponder ID, and then proof of insurance through Triangle Life And Casualty, and then an inspection certificate. A bit of awkwardness ensued. Broni and I headed to the insurance office to check out the prices and buy insurance if possible. The inspection certificate was still current, if not exactly issued to us. The lack of transponder was not particularly an issue.

The Insurance Agent, Sasha Soto, had two big Orion goons with her, one named Vosril. She stated that they issue policies to people without asking too many questions, and we negotiated a sixty-day policy, with the assumption on Sasha's part that we'd extend the policy once we had received our cash from the delivery.

Jousri impressed on us that it is VERY IMPORTANT that we use personal rather than cargo transporters for the Ruby. The evidence, as Larsen discovered, after the Ruby had even been transported on the personal transporter, seemed to bear this out.

We departed, heading for Jemison.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7605.28 : Gamon to Jemison, The Triangle (near IKS and Romulan Star Empire) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate Stardate 7604.25 - near Gamon - Andromedans at Newlin III

We got a report that an Andromedan ship sighted at Newlin III.

Stardate 7605.05 - near Gamon - Lt. Governor Sot of Baker's World Killed In Accident

We heard a very distressing report that Sot, the Lt. Governor of Baker's World, had been killed in a depressurization incident. A BioResearch-engineered "accident" seems more likely.

Stardate 7605.12 - near Jemison - Orion Tracker Found In L23 Victim Justin Sanchez

Dr. Manheim, continuing to investigate the remains of L23 victims, found a small implant of Orion make. It turned out to be a tracker that was from the remains of Justin Cruz Sanchez. That seemed like trouble we had that we had not been previously aware of, and we dumped the tracker overboard.

Stardate 7605.19 - near Jemison - Andromedans at Jemison

There was a report of an Andromedan ship sighted at Jemison. Great.

Stardate 7605.20 - near Jemison - Antimatter Lifeforms

We sensed high-energy emissions up ahead in our course, basically stationary with no obvious point of origin or destination. We decided to get a better look, and dropped out of warp and came in cloaked.

We found 15 glowing rocks, not particularly big. Two things were unusual. First, they were lifeforms. Second…they were made out of antimatter. In total, more than five hundred pounds of antimatter.

Lifeforms such as these are extremely rare—I mean, they basically shouldn't be in our galaxy, seeing as how any ordinary matter they interact with hurts them and causes a shower of gamma rays—but they're not unheard of. Federation protocol is to destroy these if found, but Larsen argued against that course of action, in that they are peaceful lifeforms.

They basically looked like rocks, and the Romulans, if they learned of them, might want to harvest them for their singularity drives. We noted the location and proceeded onward.

Stardate 7605.23 - near Jemison - Invader Swarm on Zwaalan At 50% Containment

We got a report that the Invader Swarm on Zwaalan had been 50% contained, and no major cities had fallen.

Stardate 7605.28 - near Jemison - Invader Swarm on Zwaalan At 90% Containment

The next Zwaalan update stated that the Swarm was 90% contained, albeit with 50% biosphere damage.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7606.01 : Jemison, The Triangle (near the Romulan Star Empire) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison - Arrival

We arrived at Jemison. First, we planned to dock. Then we'd call Jean Carislon to announce our arrival, deliver the Ruby to Warrum, and conduct the meeting with Luxury Apparel that Carislon said she'd set up for us.

Our first order of business was to meet with Jean Carislon and request she set up the meeting with Luxury Apparel, as well as to let her know about our cargo and demonstrate our respect.

We docked and declared our wheat.

We talked for a while to the Tellarite dockmaster. He and Broni exchanged insults and he eventually pointed us to Club Enigma as a good place for a steak.

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison - Jemison Brokerage

Next we went into Jemison Brokerage. There was a human woman there, who assured us we only needed to declare (and pay the brokerage fee) once money changed hands. She also confirmed that Jean was expecting us, although she pointed out we were early…which indeed we were, thanks to Broni's engineering.

Our cargo for sale was simply 25 Ruby plants and 30 tons of wheat, and of course plans for anti-Andromedan sonic weapons.

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison - Ruby Transfer

After a terrifying review of our ongoing expenses, we contacted Warrum (bloodshot eyes and all) who turned out to be just as advertised. He sent Maureen and Othon to check out the goods. A Chinese human woman and an Andorian male approached in about an hour. Othon (the Andorian) was trying to be intimidating rather than approachable, but there was no actual trouble. Maureen agreed the shipment was in excellent shape. They offered to pay us in Federation Credits but we stated we preferred Latinum. Othon took Broni to his shuttle, where there was a young guy who could do the conversion.

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison - Wheat Sale

We had plenty of buyers for the wheat, who in fact started a little bidding war amongst themselves.

We received 3825 Cr for wheat sale and a whopping 100,000 Cr (in latinum) for the drug sale.

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison - Vol'rala Safe

Based on that experience, Larsen set up a little smuggling compartment in the botany lab. Clearly running drugs is much more profitable than ferrying grain from place to place.

Momentarily flush, we decided to go spend some of that money on good food and drinks, and headed over to Club Enigma.

Stardate 7606.01 - Club Enigma, Jemison - Bounty Hunters

We arrived at Club Enigma, and after marvelling at the size of the toilets, and appreciating the fountain in the middle of the room, struck up a conversation with a human man sitting at the bar. He said he was a trader. He found it interesting that we wanted to meet with Luxury Apparel, but we didn't divulge much about why. He did agree with us that those toilets were unusually voluminous.

Two Orions, one male, one female, were tending the bar; I couldn't see how many people were in the kitchen. A pair of Vulcans (mother/daughter, possibly) were at one table, a pair of Orion men at another, and three Klingons at a third. The Klingons were a young woman, a mature woman, and an adult male.

A man walked in and I recognized him. I couldn't quite remember his name, but it was still talked about in Security at the Academy when I was there: 15 years ago he went MIA after 12 years in service with Starfleet. He was a medical officer. He went to the other end of the bar.

Broni ordered us four actual Kentucky Bourbons. Club Enigma, as our friend at the port promised, is not cheap, but it's very well-stocked. We all ordered steaks, and Broni headed to a table to work on his tablet.

The former medical officer started a conversation and said it was nice to see humans way out here.

He said his name was Richie. That was the hint my memory needed: Richard Davis. He's talking about his ship, which is a little one-man thing. Weyer asked what he did and he claimed to be a prospector. He came over to our table. I let him know I knew, and commented that it was nice that a man really could make a fresh start in the Triangle. He offered to buy a round, and I countered by offering to buy his meal.

He took some time at the bar and returned with a tray of tranyas. We were immediately suspicious that they had been spiked. I tried to take a little sip but make it look bigger, and was spotted. I blamed the bourbon and went to get a glass of water. Then I had to take a bigger sip. It didn't taste great but on the other hand, I've never been a tranya aficionado.

Davis's story changed a little: now he was a merchant brokering prospectors' finds. Larsen piped up, having suddenly, out of nowhere, acquired a really deep knowledge of tranya, and he reported that this was definitely off.

Richie Davis quietly said, "Gentlemen, it's probably not news to you that there's a bounty on your head." That was news to us, but extremely unsurprising news. Larsen asked, just as gently, "Don't you think trading gemstones and radioactives is easier money?"

As we found out later, Weyer deployed his telepathy and read Davis's mind: "I hope these guys can take them out in one shot." "These guys" were human and Orion. The two Orions were by then on their feet and approaching our table.

Davis continued, "are you aware the bounty is alive or dead? We'd prefer 'alive' since that makes us more money." I replied, "well, son, it's unlikely we're gonna go quietly." Weyer headed for the door.

I ducked down behind the reassuringly-solid table and unslung the Romulan Disruptor Rifle from my back. Broni shot Richie, who went down. Weyer charged an Orion, who drew their guns. The male Klingon drew his gun and moved into position to protect the young woman. The Vulcans sensibly took cover under their own table.

I took a moment to aim at the man at the far end of the bar, the one we talked to when we first came in. Broni shot one of the Orions a lot, and did not drop him, and Larsen missed the Orion that Weyer was fighting.

I fired three shots into the face of the man at the bar, and he dropped. Weyer threw his opponent into the fountain. The last Orion made a run for it, and I didn't want reinforcements arriving, so I shot him four times with my disruptor. He slumped down against the door. Broni went over to the fountain and fired three shots into the Orion that Weyer had thrown.

All the combatants were now unconscious; none of us were injured.

The Klingon man was pretty upset. The young Klingon being protected seemed to be someone important. Since I was wearing my HUD eyepatch, I got a picture of her so we could find out who she was.

I offered to pay 3000 credits for everyone's tab and the damages to the bar, and smoothed things over with the Klingons. The bar owner agreed to let us keep the bound-and-gagged Richard Davis in the cooler until we were done with dinner. Somewhat miraculously, none of our assailants were dead; the bar owner called for emergency medical vehicles.

Whoever's offering the bounty, they need to start sending their good bounty hunters. You come at the king, you best not miss. These guys, however, whiffed it pretty hard.

I bought another drink for the Klingons. The man still would not tell us where they were from.

Davis had had a Type II Phaser—very rare, very valuable out here…and it comes with a stun setting. If Broni doesn't want it, I would like to keep it. The other human had a mediocre laser and the Orions each had disruptor pistols.

The EMTs arrived quickly; the Orion owner/operators of Club Enigma intercepted them. The EMTs went through the pockets of the wounded, not keeping anything, and pointedly didn't look towards us.

I'm writing this as I finish my brandy after dinner. We're going to take Davis back to our ship for interrogation. I want to know who placed the bounty: Smith at BioResearch is the leading candidate, of course, but the Federation, the IKS, Ed Wthlian, or the Romulans are all possibilities…as is Jean Carislon. I'd also like to know what the current dead and alive bounties are, and I'll check again in a few days to see if the bounty has been raised.

We beamed up with Richard. The doctor said he was in dire need of medical attention (no surprise there), so we decided to treat him but keep him restrained. After he's come to, we can interrogate him. I asked Weyer if he was willing to be present, but he played dumb about why I'd want him, so I thought "MIND-READING, you DUMBASS" really loudly. I hope he heard me.

A little research revealed that the Klingons were from the IKS: Othari Derstan was the young Klingon noble. Ushir Firgang is Corbin Nider's wife. The Firgangs are not noble, but are warrior caste. There was no indication of either an alliance or a beef between the Derstans and the Firgangs.

Stardate 7606.01 - Jemison Brokerage, Goldport city, on Jemison - Luxury Apparel Anti-Andromedan Tech Sale

Prior to our meeting with Luxury Apparel next, we reviewed our records:

On 7509.23 we sent the message, "we want survey info on this kind of crystal" to Jean and Frath. Frath Kivrov disappeared. On 7601.31, Carislon told us she was happy to broker a deal for anti-Andromedan tech. There was video with Jean at that time and she didn't seem to be implanted. We got there in 4 months instead of the promised 6, so her unreadiness for our appearance was quite understandable.

I did a little sniffing around from "reliable sources" and discovered that the bounty on us was still coming from Joe Smith of BioResearch. I'm gonna git that sucka.

For our meeting, I put the phaser on my right hip and a disruptor pistol on my left, as well as the rifle across my back, and knives in each boot. If I'm gonna look the part, I wanna be the part.

We were searched fairly thoroughly on our arrival. I surrendered the obvious weaponry, but I didn't declare the eyepatch, and I hid out a knife in my boot.

We were met by Arehr, an Andorian man, and sh’Kikrass, the Andorian woman we worked with last time. Arehr was suspicious, and sh’Kikrass was disappointed that ch'Zathri had not come. I relayed that he didn't want to leave our new captive unattended, at least until we'd had time to interrogate him, lest his friends come looking for him. Jean Carislon sauntered in, and after a bit of banter, she asked not just for her usual tithe, but also a 1% royalty on Luxury Apparel sales of the weapon. "Unprecedented!" gasped the Andorians. Well, if the weaponry turns out to be nothing, it costs Luxury Apparel nothing.

Weyer got upset at "Organic Resistance" and the stupidity of the name. Sigh.

Luxury Apparel returned fire with ".01%" and Carislon, to my amazement, said "Deal". Royalties apparently are very unusual; my read was: she was lucky to get anything, and she thinks they're gonna sell a ton. I decided we would ask for 10MCr.

The Luxury Apparel reps wanted to see the schematics. Carislon put some kind of jammer on the table. I slid them over. "Did you have this when you sent Frath to go look?" they asked. It was a little hard to remember the specifics of when and where we had done what, but that was just after we destroyed the Comstock antenna, so at that point we had a modified deflector array (no schematics for how to make more, yet), and no hand weapons.

Frath had taken a team near the Romulan border. He reported no contact with Andromedans and then went silent entirely, although sh’Kikrass reported that as time went on he became more inclined to approach Romulan space. "Are you willing to go find out what happened to Frath?" Yes, we would be interested. (We did not, of course, tell them that very little could keep us away from The Next Big Crystal.)

I asked for 10MCr, and they scoffed. We bargained for a bit and finally settled on 7 MCr, 6.3MCr of which we get to keep. We agreed (actually, Larsen proposed) a noncompete: we can't sell the plans to anyone else in the triangle. That's fine. My reading of that doesn't stop us from doing further research (and I see no reason we wouldn't offer Luxury Apparel right of first refusal on any refinements Broni invents).

We got paid and Luxury Apparel will begin producing the hand weapons almost immediately.

Jean grabbed Weyer's arm on the way out. "If you want a job here…" "I'm not in the market right now." "Well, if you change your mind…" "Why?" "I like the cut of your jib."

I think it's adorable that of all of us, Weyer is the one Jean most wants to make her Space Pirate.

Weyer did tell her that he'd be interested in consulting work, rather than full-time employment…maybe he was just being polite, but maybe he's finally starting to unclench a little bit.

Yolanda felt like Jean was being truthful. The Andorians were definitely being economical with the truth. Mostly around Frath. That's OK, they either know that he did venture into Romulan space and was captured or killed, or they don't, and in any event it's our next destination. We agreed to have a celebratory dinner the next day to which we'd try to bring Broni anyhow, so that may represent an opportunity to figure out more of what they know, and perhaps to clear up our little Romulan linguistic mystery.

Stardate 7606.01 - Vol'rala, Goldport city, on Jemison - Richard Davis Interrogation

In the meantime, Davis had been stabilized to the point we could wake him up and interrogate him. He told us that the Syndicate was now involved. The bounty stood at 100k for Broni alive, 50k for each of the rest of us, with a 90% discount if we were dead. He didn't know anything about Taggar. He'd heard of Tashrul and the Organic Resistance.

He begged us to give him something so that the Orion Syndicate didn't kill anyone he'd ever loved, and, well, I was feeling generous since we were now 6.3 MCr richer, so, I proposed that we could give him a little sliver of (denatured, but he doesn't know that) crystal, and set it up to look like we interrogated him in a shack planetside and left him tied up, so he could "escape." We further determined that the Organic Resistance propaganda was out there, reasonably well known, and that he took it pretty seriously. That's a relief: Luxury Apparel should have no difficulty moving these weapons, and the people of the Triangle should have no difficulty believing they're going to be useful.

We asked Davis whether he knew of any crystals coming in from Romulan space? He said no, but also that he'd never been into Romulan space.

Next we need to run his "escape plan" by the captain, but I think it's probably a good idea. At least, I'm not down for cold-blooded murder of people who only tried to capture or kill me for money. Hot-blooded, sure. Cold-blooded murder of the Andromedan-implanted psychopath that hired him, sure. But not this poor schmuck from Earth.

At some point soon we need to figure out the details behind the transporter versus Andromedan communication stuff. We know that only the dot that never got transported is still talking to the mothership; we know that warp doesn't mess them up, but apparently the transporter does. This seems like it might have military implications, and given that they rely heavily on a different, perhaps totally incompatible, means of instantaneous movement, it doesn't seem unlikely.

So: our immediate objectives are: first to stage Richard Davis's escape or to shove him out the airlock—it's the captain's choice; second to get some rest, it having been a really long day; and third, go do some carousing with Arehr and sh’Kikrass, and see if we get anymore on what really happened to Frath or what "k'manatram" means, preferably without telling them that we heard that word in conjunction with the Luxury Apparel CEO.

Broni agreed to our prisoner release. We thought for a bit about what crystal sliver to leave with Davis.

Eventually we decided on a small fragment of the Comstock shattered antenna—a gram and a half or so—that had been beamed from transporter to cargo transporter, and then inspected by Weyer to see whether it had become inert.

Our working theory is that transporting in a personnel transporter would break contact between the crystal and its mind. That would cause initial panic and then the crystal would eventually settle into lizard-brain complacency. If we beamed it as cargo we expected it would would be completely inert matter.

This appeared to be borne out by the transport experiment: Weyer reported that as far as he could tell, the crystal was completely dead.

Our experiments had revealed that if an inert piece was in physical contact with an awake piece, the awake piece would colonize it. With any two crystals, once in contact, they seem to quickly become one mind, rather than two.

We dumped Davis near a dumpster in an alley, unconscious. We had previously implanted with a viridium tracker, so we may be able to tell where he goes. Presumably, "to the Orion mobster who subcontracted the bounty to him," but we might as well verify that.

First Mate Shaft (formerly Cmdr. Shati Nyekundu) : Personal Log : Stardate 7606.02 : Jemison, The Triangle (near the Romulan Star Empire) : CSS-2399 Vol'rala

Stardate 7606.02 - Vol'rala, Goldport city, on Jemison - Dinner with Luxury Apparel

Arehr contacted us about dinner with him and sh'Kikrass, and suggested 5 PM. Broni asked him for a dossier on Frath and was told he would recieve that dossier physically at dinner. sh'Kikrass was there in-frame briefly. From their physical similarity Arehr may be her father, and that might explain his grumpiness since she clearly has the hots for Broni.

Since, ah, going independent, I've been spending a good bit of time refining my style, and I think I've gotten rather good at it. I took a while to help everyone get looking maximally fly for our dinner.

I dressed in full bodyguard kit with the two pistols and the rifle and a knife in each boot (plus a couple other held-out weapons). Olang, a Klingon male, and Veggir, an Orion male, were both there, along with the two Andorians. We were not searched, leaving me feeling slightly ridiculous about the arsenal I was packing.

Broni brought a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon from our stash as a gift. They all passed it around, and we appear to have passed whatever bad-assery test this had been.

Veggir seemed enchanted by Yolanda, and let it slip to her that he knew stuff about the meeting he couldn't have known if he wasn't there. The anti-spying device was clearly meant to keep us (and perhaps Jean, but more on that later) in the dark, not Luxury Apparel. They did indeed have some more information on Frath, and did not want to transmit it. Given Carislon's agents' ubiquitous presence on Jemison, that makes sense.

I think that Veggir is their muscle and Olang is intelligence. Olang seems more directly interested in the Frath question.

We asked about the bounty, and Ahrer said "someone's gonna want to collect that." Veggir mused, "I'm not a pirate myself, but I have my sources. They really want you alive." That is actually useful leverage to have. Neither Ahrer nor Veggir knew what "k'manatram" means, or at least they said they didn't, and I could detect no deception on their parts. Broni, Arehr, and Olang had some katheka and talked about Frath.

He was looking for Andromedan crystals in a Spacematic Scout Ship. Intel indicated that the crystals would be inside Romulan space. Frath crossed the border as close to Jemison as possible and that's where they lost contact. The pad they handed us had a lot of very specific data about his ship. He did not have a cloaking device. We think the facility is right near the border, as close to Jemison as possible: that is, literally right where Frath crossed into Romulan space and disappeared. We did not admit to having a cloaking device, but we also did not deny we have one.

We got Ahrer's subspace number, in case we might need it need it.

Yolanda decided to go home with the Orion…and I said something about my having taken a Tellarite woman out for a date, and she chirpily replied "that makes two of us!" I feel like my colleagues may have unexpected facets here and that maybe I should make more of an effort to learn about their pasts.

(afterwards, Yolanda related that Veggir told her that not only was he watching the whole meeting, but that Jean knew it and one of her people was eavesdropping too, in the same room as Veggir)

Stardate 7606.02 - Vol'rala, Goldport city, on Jemison - Triangle Life and Casualty

After the party broke up, Broni and I went to go buy 6 months more insurance. That cost us 150KCr, ouch, but, well, we do have a substantial bounty, and as the TLC agent pointed out, they collect bounties on the uninsured as well. This will stop them from trying, and ensure that they discourage others from attempting to collect. I casually told the TLC agent we were heading to Flitner by way of Tannine. Not much of a ruse, but it might throw someone off the track.

Stardate 7606.03 - Jemison - Leaving Jemison

Stardate 7606.08 - near Jemison - Invader Swarm at Zwallan News

We heard on normal channels that the invader swarm had been dealt with at Zwaalan. King Vassily Illievich was urging the population to reclaim their territories or enroll for new territories of equivalent value. The Mars was a casualty. Oh no. Well, anyway, here's Wonderwall. I mean, actually I do feel bad for the crew on board that ship, since I bet the swarm didn't just eat the captain.

Stardate 7606.22 - near Jemison - Frath Distress Signal

We received an automated distress signal, possibly from Frath's ship. We were well within our radius of uncertainty for "where exactly is the border" and "where did Frath disappear." It took us only a couple hours to get there, and as expected, found his ship floating in space. It was somewhat damaged, but there were no obvious hull breaches. Our passive scans revealed that it was still warm, so we were fairly sure that it was still holding atmosphere.

We diverted course to Camus II upon receiving a distress call advising that the Celebium shield protecting a research station had failed, and asking for repair or evacuation within two weeks; the Yorktown was well-situated to respond.

Initial away party mission was to repair a Celebium shield breach.  Away party beamed in, and Ensign Putar began repairing the damaged terminal.  She swiftly repaired it (noting that the shields had glitched shortly before failing catastrophically) and restored power to the shields.  While she was doing so, Ensign Ballard and I noted blue liquid around existing mechanical damage in plasma conduits.  Ensign Lynn confirmed that this was copper-based blood from an unknown race.  Shortly after shield power was restored, we came under fire from a group of four natives--a hitherto unknown race with blue skin, approximately human size and humanoid in configuration, armed with primitive bows and swords, and similarly low-tech armor.  I sustained an arrow wound to the left brachial artery, which Ensign Lynn patched with near-superhuman celerity; my potentially severe wound was almost instantaneously rendered harmless by her extremely swift action.  Ensign Ballard and I returned fire with phasers set to "Stun" to provide cover for the away team to find a spot from which to beam out; Lynn discharged his weapon once, and I discharged mine twice.  I do not believe we hit any of the enemy.

Our second mission was to nonlethally neutralize a group of four Camusians, to remove them across the chasm at the edge of the plateau on which the research station is located, and to destroy the bridges connecting that plateau to the one from which the natives presumably came.  We worked in two teams, I with Ensign Lynn and Ballard with Ensign Putar, so that I or Ballard would grapple a native and Lynn or Putar would apply a knockout hypo-spray to them.  This tactic was successful: we were able to knock out three of the natives; the fourth escaped across the rope bridge.  We scanned the unconscious natives with a tricorder beamed down to the team and ostentatiously threw their weapons into the chasm as an intimidation tactic.  We arranged to beam the three unconscious natives to a secluded location across the chasm.  While following the fourth native, Ensign Lynn had noted a cave in the plateau cliff face.  A geo-and-bio-scan revealed an interior chamber containing eight natives.  The ship sent down a knockout gas grenade and climbing gear, and Ensign Lynn, a skilled climber, set a belay.  I entered the cave and threw the grenade into the chamber within.  After retreating, allowing the gas time to work, and donning a respirator, I made my way inside.  Once inside, I noted seven unconscious natives and a conscious humanoid--not human, not one of the natives, other than that, race unknown--standing in front of a glowing portal, which appeared to open into a space most definitely not shown by our geo-scan.  I acquired a tricorder scan of this individual; he (?) appeared alert to a foreign presence (and had certainly not been affected by the gas, as the seven natives were), and I therefore retreated before he could determine who or what I was.  I was advised by the ship to return immediately upon destruction of the rope bridge.  Putar and I hacked the support ropes apart, and the party beamed back aboard.

I was assigned to an Away Team lead by Ens. Vorisign, along with Ljg Sparkle Lynn, Ens Aura Puter, Ens. Kagiso Mkeli.  Our assignment was to meet up with OOA Liaison Something Something, with the goals of  1)  Study the indigenous "deepie" species - classified as an "aggressive animal" by OOA 2)   something else I can't recall 3) develop a Deepie EWS. After beaming down within the OOA HQ building, we went to a local transport hub to take public shuttle to The Ozarks to investigate a site of a recent Deepie attack.

After the OOA LIason briefed us in, Mkeli intimated that she felt he was not being truthful and may be actively misleading or misinforming of us. Showing an abundance of caution, the team dispersed throughout the bus. Vorisign sat in the rear. Puter and Lynn sat in the middle. I sat in the front row, port side, isle seat. Most of the passengers appeared openly welcoming and welcoming to the Star Fleet presence on the craft. However, I observed several passengers exhibiting different behavior. Specifically, there were 5 passengers that seemed furtive, reserved and/or clearly wary. I tried to sit next to one of these, a human woman, who sat in the front row however I was directed to sit elsewhere by a male Vulcan who appeared, if not hostile, then certainly nonplussed by the presence of a StarFleet Officer.

I sat next to a tall outwardly imposing human male also exhibiting the stated non-receptive behavior. I tried to engage him in friendly conversation in an attempt to determine the source of his discomfort.  I was unable to elicit any response beyond non-verbals and monosyllables. Not long after take off the Human Female mentioned above rose to ostensibly go to the head. Puter rose to follow her. Once the female was out-of-sight the Vulcan, the man next to me, and 2 humans at the rear of the craft rose and brandished handheld weapons, pointing them at the passengers, and the Away Team.

The Vulcan stated words-to-the-effect of "Stay calm no-one will get hurt". It was my judgement that the Vulcan was in a leadership position and that by engaging and distracting or disabling him would disrupt the command-and-control structure of the hijackers, or at a minimum cause a distraction that my comrades would take advantage of to gain control of the situation.

As I rose to tackle the Vulcan some few feet to my right, I heard the pulse of a Type II Phaser set to Stun come from the rear of the craft. I was able to tackle the Vulcan, falling into the slightly rescued egress/ingress ramp for the craft. At this point my awareness of the tactical situation in the rest of the shuttle is sketchy as I was engaged in a tussle with the Vulcan. At one point I observed the Large Human who had been seated next to me standing above us with a weapon trained on me. I felt a feint or distraction would afford me the opportunity to maintain combat effectiveness and provide a possible opening for a Team Member to gain an advantage. So I made a show of looking behind him and shouted "Ensign, NO!" with as much conviction as I could muster. It did distract him, to what effect I'm not sure as I was once again engaged in hand-to-hand grappling with the Vulcan.

Some moments later, the Vulcan broke free from me only to be stunned by a well-placed shot from Ensign Vorisgn. I dis-armed the Vulcan and also recovered his ID (given to the Duty Officer upon our return to ship).  I was able to see the Ens. Puter and Vorisgn had the pilot cabin under control. So, I returned to passenger cabin and assisted with dis-arming and restraining the hijackers. I then positioned myself a discrete distance from the cabin door and the passenger compartment so as to be to observe the passengers and restrained hijackers as well as be able to assist the others in the pilot cabin.

I had to restraint the OOA Liaison from entering the cabin, despite his vociferous protestations. The Team learned that the hijackers were attempting to force a Starfleet Away team to an "unmolested, un-staged" Deepie encounter location to learn "what was really going on". Vorisgn made (the correct, in my opinion) call to commandeer the ship and investigate this site.

We landed were the hijackers instructed. I suggested we allow the OOA Liaison to accompany the Away Team to the site. I stayed in the bus, to guard the hijackers and the curious, and remarkably and admirably understanding civilian passengers. After approximately 10 minutes the OOA Liaison ran onto the ship, out-of-breath, frightened, agitated demanding that we take-off immediately. Shortly thereafter the remainder the away team, along with 2 new civilians who must have been on-site already all came aboard. I took piloted the bus, rising to a hover so we could observe a group of Deepies who had attacked the team.

The creatures displayed, to my eyes, behavior consistent with intelligent social animals acting in concert with a common goal. Decidedly not the behavior of more simple aggressive pack animals.  Ens. Vorisgn directed me to fly the bus to back to our point of origin, and not to our original destination of Ozarks.

We returned to the Yorktown and debriefed. The information collected strongly suggested that Starfleet had been purposely mislead about the true nature of the Deepie species by the OOA. Evidence that the Deepies are sapient had been suppressed in order to ensure unrestricted access to the natural resource wealth of the planet.

The next day we were redeployed aboard a submersible shuttle craft to confirm and act upon information collected by data collection bouys deployed around the main landmass. This information further corroborated our suspicion that the Deepies are NOT simple animals but are sapient.  Our patrol was uneventful for many hours when we happened upon what appeared to be a family group of Deepies, a larger 'male' a smaller 'female' and smaller still "child" deepie. The "father" took up a clearly protective posture when they became aware of our presence. Ens. Mkeli was able to communicate with the now clearly intelligent and sapient creatures. The details of this conversation were recorded and attached to this report.

With OOA's duplicitous behavior  exposed. We were immediately redeployed to the OOA HQ to install intelligence gathering equipment in order to determine the extent of the cover-up.  Our work was completed quickly and efficiently. We returned to the Yorktown again.

We (Ensigns Keaton Ballard, Attila Vorosign, Kagiso Mkeli and Lieutenant Junior Grade Spark Lynne, and I, Ensign Aura Putar) were assigned to investigate the current situation on the planet Sinbad, involving the Deepies, a race of supposed “wild animals”. The Deepies were supposedly attacking various fishing settlements. We were on our way to one site of these attacks, some of the passengers on our shuttle tried to hijack the shuttle.

However, we quickly apprehended them and learned that they saw that we were from Starfleet, and tried to hijack the ship in order to reveal to us the truth about the Deepies. They took us to the location of three (3) dead Deepies that were not tampered with by the O.O.A. We saw that they were clearly intelligent, and what the Federation would consider a Class Three Technology Level, akin to that of the Native Americans on Old Earth. The Deepies had tools much more advanced than sharpened coral. They had long coral knives, coral harpoons, and most notably a crossbow made out of coral and with a string made out of kelp.

Later, we showed this evidence to our superiors and they decided for us to attempt to make contact with the Deepies. They had developed a device that translated our language to the supersonic speech of their race. We learned from them that the “land devils”, or O.O.A., was actually attacking the Deepies first! We also promised to end the deaths of their people.

We reported this to our superiors, who had us gather more intelligence on the O.O.A. Vorosign set up a 3D surveillance system in the O.O.A. headquarters, and we had the opportunity to look around their computer files. Mkeli found a deleted intercompany memo to get rid of the Deepy artifacts, and information regarding the fact that the O.O.A. knew about the Deepies’ intelligence.

The O.O.A. has been shut down, and certain O.O.A. executives are currently in jail. The colony on Sinbad will not be abandoned, but relations with the Deepies have begun and laws will be placed to ensure that they have a steady supply of food (fish).

We were briefed about the Deepies: vicious warm-blooded sea-dwelling (although amphibious) animals roughly the size of large humans, which had presumably been responsible (presumably) for the loss of the two original colonies 150 and 100 years previously, and which Our stated mission was to investigate sites of recent Deepie attacks, and come up with three items of consultative advice for the Office of Oceanic Affairs: first, to locate any Deepie-free regions on Sinbad, second, to design a Deepie Repellent System, and third, to design a Deepie Early-Warning System.  An unusually large security contingent--effectively, the entire security crew, and much of the remaining crew of the Yorktown--was dispatched on this mission.

My suspicions that something was shady on Sinbad were first aroused during the initial briefing.  It seemed implausible to me that creatures approximately the size of large humans could wipe out two early colony attempts if they were not sapient.  After all, humans on earth survived for milennia, at much lower levels of technology, sharing their biomes with creatures such as grizzly bears, hippopotami, elephants, and tigers.  Any one of these creatures is far more ferocious and deadly than any human-sized animal could be.  Even if these animals had crude coral weapons, without a means to coordinate and plan their actions, they would at worst be a dangerous nuisance to colonists, not a colony-eradicating menace.

Many small teams were formed, each one to investigate a different site of Deepie attacks in order to understand the method and ferocity of the attacks.  My team consisted of myself, Leiutenant Junior Grade Lynn, Ensign Ballard, Ensign Putar, and Ensign Mkele.  As the Security Officer, I was in command of our team.

Our own initial foray began uneventfully, with our liason Rupert Fuller of the Office of Oceanic Affairs accompanying us on board a metro shuttle.  I determined from him that OOA was effectively the local government.  The planet of Sinbad was, basically, a "company town" more or less equivalent to a mining town on Earth in the late 19th century.  That is, a single privately-owned corporation was in charge legislative, judicial, and executive functions, and that corporation's charter was to extract wealth from the planet in the form of resources.  I note this, because it is crucial to explain the behavior of OOA, as we discovered it during this mission.

In addition to our Star Fleet-issued weaponry, I borrowed a sonic stunner from OOA--it appears to be the personal defense weapon of choice on Sinbad, since it is unusually effective when used against underwater targets, such as the Deepies.  We were anticipating hostile interactions with the Deepies, so I ordered my crew to all arm themselves with phasers, set on the "stun" setting, although I allowed Ensign Mkele to take a Model I Phaser rather than the Model II Phasers we had been issued.

We were to take the metro shuttle down the coast and see the site of a recent Deepie attack at a village called Ozark.  This was a public conveyance, a fact whose import will become evident in a moment.  Members of the away team, expecting trouble, took care to situate themselves in such a way as to be able to observe the other passengers as well as the ocean near the shore.  I seated myself in the rear, next to a man whom I observed was wearing a Gauss Needler.  I attempted to make friendly conversation with him regarding his personal sidearm (although it was something of a novelty to me, I made the assumption that Sinbad has much more relaxed firearms laws than most member planets of the UFP, and I have something of a hobbyist interest in unusual personal weaponry), and was rebuffed.  Once aloft, a remarkably attractive human woman, one Pamela Allen (as we later determined), rose and went forward as if to make use of the restroom.  When Ensign Putar rose to follow her, Allen's companion, a Vulcan of very small build, stepped into the aisle to block her way.  This was apparently the sign the hijackers had been expecting.

The man next to me began to draw his needler; since I was already alerted to his lethal weaponry, I had been watching him for such a move, and stunned him immediately.  Ensign Ballard began to grapple with the small Vulcan.  Two other co-conspirators had also risen and drawn their sonic stun weapons: a black male in the back of the vehicle on the other side of the aisle from myself and the needler-armed man, and a large male of Hispanic appearance sitting directly opposite Allen, and directly in front of Ensign Mkele.  I exchanged fire with the remaining hijacker in the back of the vehicle, and Mkele went down, stunned by the Hispanic man.  Putar stepped past the grappling Vulcan and Ballard.  Lynn stood by ready to assist any wounded.  I closed with the black man and stunned him; Ballard dodged a blow from the Hispanic man and continued wrestling the Vulcan, and Putar disappeared forward.  I charged up the aisle and stunned the Hispanic man.  After a few seconds Putar advised us from the pilots' cabin that she had the situation under control, so with a sense of relief I stunned the remaining hijacker--the Vulcan--and proceeded to remove weaponry from the fallen, and instruct my team to place the hijackers in restraints.  Lt. Lynn ascertained that the only injuries were to the hijackers and those were only minor stunner burns.

It was when I went forward to assess the situation in the pilots' cabin that matters began to get more complicated.  Putar had her stunner trained on Ms. Allen, who proceeded to tell us the reason for the hijacking: she and her compatriots felt they needed to show us an actual site of Deepie hostilites, rather than one that (she claimed) was a fake site, arranged by OOA as a fraudulent exhibit.  It is here that I broke Federation protocol.  The following decision was taken on my own initiative, and I accept full responsibility for it.  Allen showed that she had installed a jammer keeping OOA from tracking the vehicle, and asked that we divert course to a site of her choosing.  As I was already suspicious of the official OOA story, I therefore commanded that the windows of the vehicle be blacked out and that she be permitted to fly the vehicle to the destination, Osage, she had selected.

I instructed the passengers on the vehicle to remain calm and make no sudden movements, and reassured them that they were safe, although likely to suffer inconvenience to their travel plans.

Rupert Fuller, the OOA liason, became quite agitated at this, and it was necessary for Ballard to use the threat of stunning to return him to his seat.  He has promised  a full report of my unorthodox behavior to his and my superiors, as is, of course, his right as a UFP citizen.  As you will see, I believed, and believe, that Allen's suspicions of a coverup were sufficiently credible that proceeding to Osage without allowing him to communicate our new destination to his superiors was the correct decision.

When we arrived there, Fuller demanded to accompany us to see whatever it was Allen wished to show us.  We agreed, but relieved him of his communicator first.  Ballard remained on the vehicle with the other passengers, while the rest of the team accompanied Allen.  What we saw is documented in the attached tricorder recording.  Suffice it to say, there was a ghastly stench--thank your lucky stars that tricorders do not replay olfactory data--and the bodies of six or seven Deepies.  Lynn ascertained that they had died from massive pressure trauma, which had smashed internal organs and broken bones.  I myself am still very curious about what actually inflicted this damager.  However, the most important thing we saw was that in addition to intricately-worked coral harpoons--which might, perhaps, with some license, be called "primitive coral tools," there were coral-and-kelp crossbows.  Clearly, animals cannot fashion crossbows.  Ensign Putar took this crossbow for Starfleet investigation.  I would be remiss if I did not report Fuller's supposition (captured in the recording at 09:21) that these were faked artifacts, created and placed there by pro-Deepie, anti-OOA, activists.  Nonetheless, what I saw certainly appeared to me to be plausible evidence of sophisticated tool use by the Deepies, and certainly something that merited a moratorium on OOA planetary exploitation activity until actual xenology experts could be engaged to ascertain whether or not these purported artifacts were real.

While examining the bodies and tools, a further group of Deepies had arrived.  I was capturing tricorder video of our activities, and did not see them until a harpoon pierced my hand (10:07).  At this point I ordered a retreat to the vehicle.  This was accomplished for the most part with alacrity, although Fuller rather dangerously kept discharging his weapon over his shoulder as he ran, and Ensign Mkele's devotion to her occupation is such that it took a direct order to get her to abandon her sociological observation of the Deepies and return to the vehicle.  It was she who pointed out (at the time, and visible on the video at 10:24-10:35) that the Deepies appeared to be communicating with each other and coordinating their actions by means of hand-signals and motions of their heads.  We returned to the craft, where Ensign Putar relieved Fuller of his weapon, and Ensign Ballard took us up out of melee range, and made the windows transparent again, so that we could observe the Deepies as they threatened the shuttlecraft and then returned to the water.  Then Ballard returned us to Mission Control at OOA.  While on the way there, Lynn attended to my wound, and on my orders placed restraints on Pamela Allen.  Allen stated that if she and her compatriots were surrendered to OOA custody they would never be heard from again.  Given what we had seen, this seemed plausible to me, and so I made the decision to take Allen and the other hijackers into Starfleet Custody.  This was done over the strenuous objections of Fuller.  His communicator and sonic stunnder were returned, and we elected to spend the night on the Yorktown rather than in an OOA-controlled site.

Our preliminary report, and our captives, caused consternation aboard the Yorktown.  However, senior Starfleet crew from the Counseling department agreed, upon hearing the captives' story, and upon seeing the (frankly rather spectacular) coral crossbow, that their stated fear of OOA was plausible and recommended that they seek asylum with Starfleet.  I have not seen them since, nor do I know what their disposition was, but I would like to argue for clemency on their behalf; as events proved, they were, as far as I can ascertain, telling the complete truth about OOA's coverup of wholesale murder of sapients and attempted deception of the UFP to facilitate same.  Although it is concerning that one of their number was armed with a lethal weapon, on the whole they appear to have taken quite reasonable precautions to ensure that their hijacking was as low-risk as such an inherently sociopathic action can be.  I would certainly not argue that the ends justify the means in the general case, but in this particular instance, I feel their motives were indeed pure and the information they revealed to us would very likely have been covered up by OOA if they had not taken a course as drastic as they took, and, as I explain later, the costs of Starfleet having been deceived by OOA would have been horrific.

The next morning we were afforded the opportunity to attempt to open contact with the Deepies.  Overnight Starfleet had put down many sensor buoys, recorded a great deal of Deepie activity, and used intelligence analysis of the ultrasonic data thus recorded to put together a crude translating device.

I would here like to state yet another aspect of OOA's behavior that I find extremely troubling.  The species report on Deepies we received stated they had no form of communication and didn't have language.  Yet here the OOA was faced with a several-hundred-pound warm-blooded ocean-dwelling species.  Are we really to believe that they never thought to record and analyze ultrasound?  We had several-hundred-pound warm-blooded ocean-dwelling species on Earth.  They're called dolphins,  I'm no zoologist or xenologist, but even I know that dolphins communicate with each other with ultrasound.  And if Starfleet could hack together a basic Deepie dictionary literally overnight, surely OOA could have figured out that the sounds these creatures were making were more complex than basic echolocation.  That this oversight could have been mere incompetence seems very implausible to me, given that OOA managed to run a functional and profitable colony for half a century.  Thus, it is indeed my assertion that the OOA lackeys who put together the initial species report half a century ago did so in the full knowledge that they were condemning a sapient race to be slaughtered as if they were dumb animals, in order, presumably, to protect their profit margins.  I hope this is taken into consideration in the ultimate disposition of the pending cases against OOA leadership.

My request for protective deep-sea gear was denied by my commanding officer.  Although I of course defer to his judgment, I would like to state for the record that, at this point, what we knew of the Deepies was that they were very likely a sapient species capable of well-coordinated action, and that they had utterly destroyed two previous colonization attempts--to this day, no trace of the initial colony has ever been found.  I think that believing that the Deepies might have some way to crack open a shuttlecraft was not prima facie unreasonable.

With Ballard at the undersea shuttle controls, we spent most of the day in search of Deepies.  Eventually a family group--apparently, a male, a female, and a child (gender indeterminate)--were located, and Ensign Mkele began attempting communication with them.  I would like to state for the record how extraordinarily privileged I feel to have been allowed to be present at First Communication with a new alien species.  After several attempts, we managed to convey the concepts of "peace" and "respect" to the Deepie group (in the attached tricorder recording at 13:22), and then Mkele had an actual conversation with them.  This is all documented, of course, in the attached tricorder recording, but it was extremely affecting to be there in person for this historic moment.  The most important part of the conversation was that the Deepies view us as Land Demons, and promised to stop killing humans as long as humans didn't kill any more of them.  The Deepies asserted unequivocally (17:49) that humans killed them without provocation.  Unfortunately, shortly after this point, communications broke down and the Deepies fled; we apparently inadvertently said something that frightened them.

We sent the recording this communication back to Starfleet; shortly thereafter we were sent down to, under cover of a fraudulent fire alarm, plant surveillance equipment in OOA headquarters.  While so doing, Ensign Putar was able to find a memo (attached) in their computer system from OOA to a research group enjoining them to, in advance of Starfleet's arrival, "hide evidence of the artifacts or it will be hidden for you."  Recordings obtained over the next day (see attachments) showed an OOA executive violating an employee's right to freedom of association (specified in the UFP Charter Of Sapient Rights, section 34) by threatening him with dismissal if he were ever seen at a pro-Deepie rally again, and, most damning, an OOA executive ordering one of his goons to, and I quote, "get any dead Deepies off the beach and out to sea before Starfleet finds them."

At this point Starfleet felt it had enough evidence to move decisively against OOA, and the Yorktown left orbit.

Attachments: <> <> <> <> <>

I would like to conclude by stating that I have never been prouder to be a part of Starfleet.  I can only surmise that the scale of Starfleet attention to a request for help with the Deepie Problem indicates that someone in a position of authority had suspicions about OOA's stewardship of Sinbad.  Starfleet's trust in me was exceptional.  I did, of course, egregiously violate protocol by allowing the hijackers to proceed to their destination; I made this decision because I felt that if I followed protocol, then irreparable harm might be done.  And yet, as subsequent events showed, the mere fact that I was an inexperienced Ensign did not prevent Starfleet from reviewing my decision and coming to the conclusion that I had acted appropriately.  At least, I assume that is the signal sent by my being allowed to go on the First Communication mission (for which I am more grateful than I can express) rather than being thrown into the brig, and then further being deployed to gather evidence of OOA's malfeasance.

The existence of bodies like OOA trouble me.  The conflict of interest that necessarily arises when a private resource-extraction company is the government of a planet is toxic enough on its own.  When the planet has inhabitants, and it is in the financial interest of the corporation to deny that the inhabitants are people--when it ought to have known that at the very least there was some doubt that they were merely animals--then the potential for genocidal tragedy is enormous.  I shudder to think what might have happened had OOA succeeded in its attempt to decieve Starfleet.  We might well--with the very best of intentions, that of protecting the safetly of the colonists of Sinbad--have been complicit in, at the very least, the gross oppression of a sapient species, and at worse its literal genocide.

I hope that the colony on Sinbad can establish peaceful relations with the Deepies, and that the Deepies and the colonists can live in harmony.  I also hope very fervently that the rot at the center of the OOA can be fully uncovered, and that the malefactors be punished to the fullest extent Federation law provides.

While onboard the Yorktown after the Sinbad mission, Ensign Ballard approached me, Ensign Putar, and Ensign Mkele to recruit us for an undercover mission.

Orion Pirate activity had been up significantly in the sector, and it was believed that someone must have been providing position data on merchant ships to the Orion Syndicate thus enabling their enhanced success.  We were sent to investigate a largely-disused orbital platform above the Nin'yend system.  This platform was operated by the Coridans.

For this mission we were provided with undercover identities and equipment.  I received a distressed Type I phaser with a distorter chip, as well as a vacc suit and quite a bit of hard currency.  I had grand plans to attempt to infiltrate the criminal gang I was sure we would find there, and attempted to requisition a case of apparently-stolen broad-spectrum antibiotics, but Ballard's command chain quashed my amateur thespian ambitions.  We were also issued with another distorter chip, two chameleon chips, two chameleon belts, and two distorter belts.  I( would like to commend Starfleet scientists and engineers for the development of the chameleon technology--as you will see, the mission succeeded in huge part thanks to these handy devices.  The party had two concealed tricorders and another phaser, as well as a Type II phaser mocked up to look like a Nin'yend black powder weapon.

So we went to the platform, which turned out to be in large part abandoned.  Ballard was set up with a job in the Communications division working for one Kared, while the rest of us took menial jobs.  I quickly began to spend my off-shift hours reconnoitering the disused parts of the station, and was able to gain access to the subspace transceiver mast.  There were signs of recent activity at the computer terminal at the mast.  While I was doing this, Ballard had found that the transceiver logs were protected by computer security, and Mkele had ascertained that Kared was not well-liked among the Coridan personnell.

Using the chameleon belts, Putar and I ascended to the mast.  She was able to crack the computer security and recover a sequence of beam repositioning commands and deleted, encrypted files containing records of ship movements.  I set up an improvised spy camera to record comings and goings to the site.

The following work shift, Ballard, wearing a chameleon belt, shadowed Kared to the mast, where he moved the beam, transmitted a file, and deleted records of this transaction (see attached still photo sequence from camera).  Putar and I subsequently went up there and altered the computer's programming so that, any time a file was deleted from that terminal, the computer would instead delay 45 minutes and then transmit the supposedly-deleted files to a Federation Starbase, to be routed Eyes Only to Ballard's superior for this mission.  It's a pity that this plan never had a chance to take effect; we were very proud of it.

Mkele ascertained from Kared's secretary Keia (?) that he was going down to the Nin'yend port of Kahl'yang via the next daily shuttle.  As this corresponded with our three-day off-shift rotation, we all took the shuttle down.  Upon disembarking, unfortunately, my phaser was confiscated when it was discovered during a patdown.  There did not seem to be any particular negative reaction to my shrugging and saying I forgot it was in my pants, so I can surmise that low-lifes smuggling contraband stolen weapons onto Nin'yend is neither unusual nor particularly egregious.

At any rate, Putar and Mkele acted like curious tourists while keeping an eye on Kared.  I activated the chameleon suit and found a vantage several yards away.  Kared, clearly nervous, sat alone at a table in the plaza.  He was soon approached by a Nin'yend.  Ballard somehow managed to shadow Kared so well that he ended up at the very next table, and I tiptoed through the crowd.  Both of us were able to hear the ensuing conversation.  The Nin'yend (surprisingly) spoke English, and told Kared that he'd been compromised and that "there will be no more transmissions."  He also said "you're not our only agent" and "we're going to take care of you."  When Kared expressed his desire to leave his life of criminality, his interlocutor pointed out that he was in much too deep for that, and that because of the transmissions he had sent, hundreds of innocents were dead.  Kared slid something across the table to the Nin'yend, who departed.  I attempted to follow at some distance, and I did not see the events that happened next.

Ballard was shot at long range by a stunner from an office building overlooking the plaza.  Putar administered first aid while Mkele attempted to reach the building the shots came from.  I followed the Nin'yend, and, since I was cloaked, was able to tackle him.  At this point I disengaged the chameleon suit and told him that he was under arrest by an officer of Starfleet.  I attempted to scratch him, to get a DNA sample for matching against known perpetrators, and was very surprised to find a thick layer of body paint, underneath which was green skin.  An Orion Gangster!  We wrestled for a few seconds, and then I was hit by a stunner and knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, Mkele had been told that the back door of the office from which the shot that disabled Ballard had come had opened by itself.  When we regrouped we realized that the shooter had clearly had a chameleon belt of his own.  We followed the shooter and the Orion Syndicate operative's path out the south gate of the city, where passersby told us that two men had stepped outside and then simply vanished.  We found depressions in the group consistent with an aircar's landing struts, and therefore presumed they had escaped in a chameleoned aircar.   We placed a call to the platform, which was answered by Keia, and we gave her a priority message for Starfleet requesting that the Yorktown take up a position in orbit over the Nin'yend system.

We then went back into Kahl'yang to attempt to find Kared.  Mkele was able to ascertain which hotel he was in, and Ballard and I watched the exits while Mkele and Putar attempted to apprehend him in his room.  When Kared tried to make his escape through the window, Ballard was able to capture him.  Under interrogation, he revealed only that his contact was holed up in a mine to the south, and that if the syndicate knew he'd squealed he was a dead man.  We agreed to allow him to feign drunkenness and then create a public nuisance so that he would be locked up in the local hoosegow overnight and thus protected from mob vengeance.  He performed his role adequately and was indeed hauled off to the local jail.  We checked back in with Keia to find that the Yorktown was on its way and would arrive in approximately a day.

We then acquired an area map, and it was a simple matter to find the most-defensible mine: the mine entrance was on a steep slope above a gorge crossed by a single narrow bridge.  We were fairly certain that was our destination.  We then quickly bought some prospecting supplies and found a native with a donkeycart heading in the direction of the southern mines.  He agreed to give us a ride, and just after we entered the forest, we were fired upon by a Nin'yend with a bow.  I received a minor arrow wound, and, due to the chameleon suit, was able to tackle the Nin'yend.  Ballard quickly stunned him, and he was quickly bound and gagged and placed in the wagon.  The old miner decided he would like to part ways with us at that point, and said he would take our attacker with him.  We travelled the rest of the way on foot, and, once again using the unbelievably useful chameleon belts, crossed the bridge unseen two at a time, one of the parties returning with both belts while the other party took cover behind a large boulder near--shockingly--a chameleon-cloaked aircar.

Once we were all over there, while concealed, Ballard was able to stun the Nin'yend sentry.  We quickly bound and gagged him, stashed him behind a convenient boulder, and stealthily crept into the mine.  There were three Orion Syndicate mobsters there, one of whom was the one we had seen earlier with Kared.  Ballard stunned two with a wide-beam stunner; I crept behind the third, and put him in a headlock with a knife to his throat.  He did not surrender; I attempted to subdue him nonlethally by hitting him in the head with the pommel of my knife, and Ballard was able to stun him.  All three Orions were bound and gagged and we awaited pickup by the Yorktown.

I think this mission went nearly as well as it could have; I regret only that we were not able to capture any of the actual transmissions.  We caused no individual any harm worse than a minor phaser burn, and we sustained no real injuries (Ballard and I had minor phaser burns, and I received a superficial arrow wound).  We captured three Orion Syndicate members alive, as well as their Coridan patsy.  While this was hardly the dramatic, historic First Contact moment of the Sinbad expedition, it was a mission executed competently and honorably.  On a personal note, I very much enjoyed the opportunity to explore abandoned parts of the Coridan orbital platform, and learned a great deal (admittedly, entirely from negative examples) about how to secure a mostly-mothballed space station.

Our mission principal, Keaton Ballard, displayed excellent leadership skills and did an exemplary job coordinating our actions and developing a plan for investigation of the Syndicate mole and then apprehension of the perpetrators.  I believe he should receive a commendation for this mission, and I wish him every success in his likely-to-be-splendid Starfleet career.  It would be an honor to someday serve under him if and when he should achieve his own command.

This is easily the most personally and professionally disturbing mission report I have yet written.

I and my teammates were taking shore leave on Poseidon on stardate after our encounter with the Orionian Pirates.  This shore leave was not particularly debauched.  I spent most of my time sunbathing on the beach.

Then I awoke in a bland, generic, medium-high-end business hotel room.  My teammates were in the same room.  We were all wearing white jumpsuits, and our hair had been cut short.  The television was on, and it was showing a parade.  It was "Ryoc Day" and someone called "Ryoc" -- we never determined if it was a name or an honorific, or both, rather like "Caesar" -- was riding in a limo, waving to the crowds.  She was an older woman, unremarkable in appearance.

Everyone in the crowd was wearing white.  The security forces were wearing white with red cross emblems.  Everything was extremely orderly.  Judging from the demeanor of the crowd, this seemed to be a propaganda parade in a tightly-controlled fascist state, whose uniform iconography was medical (rather than the more usual martial).  For instance, the ceremonial blades worn by officers were scalpel-shaped, and high-ranking officials wore what appeared to be surgical masks.

Mkele and I were first of the team to awaken, followed shortly thereafter by Ballard and Putar.  We felt dizzy and disoriented; in my opinion it was more like coming out of anaesthesia than like waking with a hangover, but it was not completely like that either.  As we were trying to get our bearings, I saw something shocking on the television:

An assassin killed one of Ryoc's guards, and began walking the phaser rifle beam up Ryoc's limo.  The camera panned around and settled on Keaton Ballard, with a phaser rifle, trying to kill Ryoc.  I am certain that the person I saw, firing a Federation-issue phaser rifle, was Keaton Ballard.  I am also certain that Keaton Ballard was right there in the room with me, trying to clear his head and shake off the lingering effects of the drug-or-whatever-it-was that had us woozy.

We immediately realized that, whatever else was going on, we were certainly being framed for this assassination attempt.  We first thought of tying together bedsheets and escaping over the balcony, but as we were several hundred yards up, this was impractical.  Ballard had to be dissuaded from trying a leap to an adjacent balcony, which would have very likely resulted in a fatal fall, as it was quite a long way.  Finally we just climbed over the balcony railing and swung ourselves down to the balcony immediately below us, exiting into another hotel room, as we heard boots outside our door, a polite knocking, and then a downright impolite knocking (by this time we had a chair wedged underneath the doorknob).

The room below us was occupied, and was occupied by people (wearing, of course, white jumpsuits) who seemed thrilled to see their new hero, the would-be assassin of Ryoc.  We instructed them to please delay our pursuers (whom they termed the "Health Police", and wanted to know if we were with "The Society of Infectious Concepts"--Ballard, in the first of many such bravura performances, gave the impression that we were without ever actually confirming such) with an oversupply of helpfulness, and we found a staircase and descended.  After several floors we heard ascending boots, and exited, crossed through the hotel along its central corridor, and descended to the ground level by the other staircase, our pursuers being higher up the building.

We found an exit to the street, which was guarded by two Health Police bearing Microwave Antipersonnel Devices (MADs).  Mkele's attempt to charm them into letting us exit failed, they became suspicious, and a struggle ensued.  It was touch-and-go for a while, as the MADs were used effectively to incapacitate me and Ballard, but Mkele and Putar were able to shove and punch the guards enough that we were eventually able to wrestle the weapons away from the guards.  Not, however, before they called for backup.  At one particularly delicate juncture, Mkele cried out for help--many doors opened, and then were immediately slammed by terrified citizens who didn't want to get involved with the Health Police and the subdual of an assassin.  One man, however, told us to run to the back of the hotel, where we would find help in the form of his brother.

Eventually we were able to flee, and sure enough there was a taxi at the back of the hotel.  Its driver took us to his house, where he filled us in on some basic facts about the world (again, aided by Ballard's bluffing so that we didn't appear to be quite as clueless as we actually were).  This was Survias, a classifed, quarantined prison world where augmented persons and persons convicted of illicit genetics research were sent.  Our driver and his brother, for example, were mental augments (our driver kept having conversations with an imaginary person to his right).  It was, as the iconography had suggested, a fascist society in the iron grip of Ryoc.  Mkele attempted hypnosis on Putar, in hopes that we would recover some knowledge about where we were and what was going on, but got nothing but Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."

This man, after we had had a bite to eat, took us to a place (on the grounds of an abandoned zoo) where we descended into a disused, off-the-grid-but-very-well-secured subway station, where we were met by a man named Steve.  We had, by this time, decided that our only hope was sending a subspace message to our superiors, since whatever had occurred, we were vastly ignorant of the situation, were being framed for an attempted assassination, and were clearly in whatever-it-was way, way over our heads.

Ballard and Steve negotiated a quid pro quo: we would help Steve break some of his rebels out of Health Police Central--they were being held there, not merely in jails, but being used (Steve asserted) as subjects for medical experimentation.  No one who was captured and taken to HPC returned.  In return, Steve would get us to the spaceport, where the only subspace radio was.

We decided to throw in our lot with Steve.  Admittedly, we didn't have much to go on, but I think our actions were defensible in that we knew we were being hunted by the as-legitimate-as-it-got government of this world, and from everything we'd seen, his allegations of torture and hideous medical experimentation were quite credible.

Steve provided us with Health Police disguises--white helmet with cross, body armor, laser weapon--and we made our way to HPC.  Entry was not difficult: we simply walked right in, unchallenged.  Putar and I went in first: our plan was to disable the security system, in so far as possible, by breaking in to their central computer, to download as much as possible providing evidence of malfeasance (e.g. medical atrocities), and then to create some sort of distraction to provide cover for the breakout.

Putar and I were able to penetrate their computer system without great difficulty.  We did not find much in the way of evidence of horrors, although there are some references to "the dungeon" and to a private medical experimentation facility at the Ryoc's palace .  We were able to take a section of recordings of the cell block security cameras showing boring empty corridors, and loop it on itself so that the computer would display nothing untoward.  The facility itself was protected by a wall with gatling laser turrets at the corners.  We set these up to fire on the armory, after a short delay.

This is the decision of the mission I have the most moral qualms with: innocents may have been harmed or killed when we instructed the building defenses to fire on the armory.  However, I chose the target quite deliberately, with the following considerations: the armory itself was very likely hardened, so it is unlikely that anyone in it when the turrets opened fire would have been immediately harmed.  Presuming they had time to get out--which I think they did--then harm coming to personnel would occur as a result of their trying to get into the armory before they'd disabled the turrets.  In short: it was intended, and I think functioned, as an area-denial attack rather than an injurious trap.

At any rate, this plan worked quite well.  We had the cell block cameras looped, Steve's troops moved in, and the lasers opened fire.  We were quickly able to find the master override and open all the cells.  Steve delegated a lieutenant to coordinate the jailbreak, and he went with us to the motor pool, where Ballard again bluffed his way to commandeering a vehicle.  We proceeded towards the spaceport.  As we got near, Steve bailed out, leaving us with the question of how we'd get through the force field blocking the road.  Ballard overrode the autopilot but it appeared that there was further security, as the car came to a halt just outside the force field.  I tried singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" in hopes that it would trigger a posthypnotic suggestion in Putar, but to no avail.   A group of armed mercenaries--not in white jumpsuits!--were on the other side for the field, and as sirens approached from behind us, we disembarked and simply told the truth: we were Federation officers, and we needed to send a subspace message.

The mercenary company dropped the field long enough to allow us through and then reraised it.  We were immediately taken to their commander--one Maria Hernandez--who permitted us to make the radio call.  It turned out we had been missing for a month.  We were told we'd be picked up once someone found out where Survias was, since it was not on the charts.

I have a number of very disturbing questions about this escapade:

Where was I (and where were my teammates) for the preceding month?  Ballard was evidently cloned.  Were the rest of us?  How likely is it that *I* am a clone and not my real self?  How many *other* knowledge-of-their-very-existence-is-suppressed prison planets does the Federation run?  Who did this to us?  How *many* clones of us are out there, and what are they up to?  Was the assassination attempt staged by Ryoc as a plot to make the citizens of Survias turn against the Federation, or was the Fake Ballard the pawn of some other force?  I hereby volunteer for a Vulcan counsellor to attempt a mind-meld and to see what suppressed memories I'm carrying of the missing month; yes, I understand that it will be painful and dangerous, but I think this is important knowledge to recover.

However, it must be said that it was a refreshing change of pace that the only thing I was shot with on this outing hurt, but didn't actually damage me.

In the weeks between our adventure on Survias and our recent excitement, I did two things of note: first, I attended therapy sessions designed to recover my missing memories, which were fairly unsuccessful. I had already recalled someone singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and recovered a memory of Judy Garland, as Dorothy Gale, in her role in the classic 1939 film "The Wizard Of Oz," in which she sang that song. This appears to be a dead end, but I will continue attending therapy sessions and see whether I can recover any more memories. Research on this movie and the book series from which it has developed has, however, provided an entertaining few hours.

The second item was that I achieved my Crowd Control certification. I will next pursue a Hand Phaser certification, and after that conclude my certification for Lt. J.G. in Enforcement with Melee Weapons.

On to the mission:

In recent weeks, tensions with the Klingon Empire have been rising, and the _Yorktown_ was dispatched to hurriedly survey sectors along the border, presumably so that the Federation can stake a claim to any such worlds before the Klingons arrive. While some members of the crew worry that this amounts to the Federation using colonists as human shields, I suspect that the Federation is not quite so callous, and is, rather, intending to use fledgling colonies as outposts for surprisingly-well-hardened defenses, in a way that gives the Federation somewhat more political cover than simply parking gunships along the border. But at any rate, such decisions are above my pay grade.

I, along with the usual suspects (apparently, I am not the only person to notice we work well together) Ensigns Putar, Mkele, and Ballard were dispatched, under the command of Lt. J.G. Julie McCormick, to survey the Teriliek system in the shuttlecraft Einstein. All we knew of Teriliek was that it was a binary system, comprised of a G-type Main Sequence star with a distant M-type dwarf companion.

Upon arrival in the system, we were greeted with a fairly standard system: gas giants on the outskirts, asteroid belt, and, rather excitingly, a Class M habitable world, with no evident sapient life. As we were beginning a standard survey, we received a coded narrowband neutrino pulse: do not scan, do not transmit, do not approach, await further instruction. This was, to say the least, unexpected. We did indeed stop for about an hour, but on receiving nothing further, we sent back, in the same code, an ultimatum that we must receive further instruction within five minutes or that we, Shuttle Einstein of the USS Yorktown, would continue our scan. The same message was repeated identically, and we concluded at this point that it was likely an automated warning system of some point. The signals did not appear to be coming from a Federation-designed transmitter. After a more urgent announcement by us that we were going to resume our survey, and a third identical repetition of the message, we did indeed resume our scans, focusing, of course, on the source of the neutrino pulse.

Scans indicated that the pulse was emanating from an asteroid, indistinguishable from many others in the belt, although it did not appear to be rotating, which was slightly odd. We set a course for it.

As we neared we were hailed by one Thumi, an Orion. He expressed some surprise that we were investigating the system where he, an innocent prospector, was prospecting for something. He invited us to his asteroid for Traditional Orion Hospitality. We attempted to relay this to the Yorktown and found our communications were jammed. After some further discussion, he blamed the automated countermeasures on his new craft and we were able to transmit our message and get confirmation that the Yorktown had received it; we let the Yorktown know we were attending a dinner hosted by an Orion and if we did not check in within four hours, there was trouble. We decided to leave McCormick on the shuttlecraft--we told her we would check in every thirty minutes and that she was to hail the Yorktown and request backup if we failed to do so. Ballard began recording audio and video with his tricorder at this point.

Then we went EVA (a side note: I think perhaps Ballard and Putar need some remedial zero-gee work, as they clearly do not have spacers' stomachs; I always thought this was something everyone learned at the Academy, but apparently I was wrong) and then entered a cloaked-from-the-outside lounge through a permeable force field, a technology I had never seen before and which I surmise was Jindarian (see below). The lounge was decorated in typical--one might even say stereotypical--Orion fashion with pillows and tapestries and so forth. Thumi treated us to an excellent meal of Space Lobster and Saurian Brandy, and then to a most impressive display of contortionist prowess by Remla the Orion Slave Girl.

We talked guardedly during this feast; we were, on the whole, fairly forthcoming about the fact that we were there to do a survey in advance of the expected wave of Klingon interest, but asking whether we'd find anything in the system that the Orions would rather let us know about first did not produce any sort of confession. Our host said that he had recently acquired the ship and was not yet familiar with all the automated systems in it. This was in response to our stating that we had found his ship by following the tightbeam neutrino pulse; Mkele noticed that he seemed surprised and displeased by this. While we had all been assuming that he had been lying through his teeth, it was at this point that she was certain of it. He, of course, claimed that the rather elaborate disguise was a ruse to avoid unwanted attention from other prospectors or Orion pirates (he himself, of course, being no pirate but simply a hardworking and completely legitimate miner). Then we felt a little jolt; it seemed unlikely to have been a meteorite strike, so we surmised that something had arrived at or departed from the asteroid and resolved to check in with McCormick and ask her whether she had seen any such activity.

However, our scheduled check-in failed: our signals were jammed again. I immediately began suiting up, as did Putar and Mkele, so that we could go outside and reestablish contact with our shuttlecraft. Ballard was enjoying a lapdance from the voluptuous Remla and did not immediately join us. Thumi called his assistant Tomean in from the airlock leading farther into the asteroid, and Tomean disappeared; after another minute or two, when communications still did not work, he called Remla and said that they would go attend to the problem themselves.

We were rather suspicious, and I moved toward the airlock in order to not let the Orions leave us all alone in this easily-exposed-to-vacuum room. At that point Remla pulled a knife (amazing, really, that she could conceal a knife in that outfit) and Ballard immediately stunned her. I managed to get Thumi in a grapple, and Ballard was able to immobilize both him and Remla. We saw the force field was flickering: evidently Tomean was about to space us all! We hurried through the airlock, dragging our captives, and got inside just as the lounge was evacuated into space. I went through the inner door and, as expected, encountered Tomean on the other side; I was able to knock him, with my newly-improved Sumo Wrestling skill, across the room, giving us all time to get into the next room from the airlock and for Ballard to stun him.

We took his Phaser II (Federation issue) from him, immobilized him, and found that we were on the bridge of what was evidently a Jindarian spacecraft, with controls 4m up the walls, although highchairs had been retrofitted for species that did not prefer 0-G (like the Orions) to easily use the controls. The airlocks were a strange mechanical interlocking iris-like pattern, but the interior doors were an even stranger organic membrane. We attempted to send a signal or to take over control of the ship, but we determined two things: first, the controls seemed to be locked out, and second, there was something that appeared to be a countdown timer (albeit in a language we could not read), which we could not stop. We decided that if any of the Orions were innocent in this matter, it was most likely to be Remla (also, Ballard really wanted to keep her rather than the males; go figure) and therefore we put her in the single vacc suit we found.

We did a hasty search of the ship, trying to find any Orion captives that we could rescue. We found no other beings on board, but we did find five staterooms, all unoccupied, and a Klingon-to-Orion dictionary, as well as a strange Jindarian semi-exoskeleton (similar to the one recovered--see below). There was also a strangely silent engine room packed with electronic equipment. Fortunately, Ballard captured recordings of all of this, so although we do not have the ship, we should have rather good video evidence to study.

When the countdown timer was only one digit long, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and left via the airlock, taking Remla with us but leaving the immobilized Tomean and Thumi on board. Sure enough, as McCormick was maneuvering to pick us up, the "asteroid" exploded. Fortunately the shuttlecraft was between the explosion and us, and so we all survived unhurt, although the shuttlecraft was badly damaged.

We immediately contacted the Yorktown and transmitted our recordings of the events so far. The shuttlecraft was leaking air rather badly, and a scan of the Class M world showed a metal object that had not been there before. We surmised that this was the jolt we had felt during the feast--perhaps a ship's boat that had fled. We decided that, since we were unhurt, and since the Orions might well destroy evidence and/or commit suicide if we delayed, that we would pursue them to the planet. At this point Mkele was overcome with illness; apparently the (truly magnificent) Space Lobster did not agree with her. She took no further part in the day's events, although her illness was not life-threatening.

Ballard piloted us down, broadcasting "Mayday! Mayday! All personnel dead or wounded! Please render any assistance possible!" Putar had the excellent idea to vent drive plasma as we descened in order to make the shuttlecraft look much more badly damaged than it was. Ballard masterfully faked a crash landing a few hundred yards from the unidentified craft. The air was breathable; other than the climate being a little chilly, one really could not ask for a better colony site. Scans showed two life forms near the unidentified ship's boat.

Ballard took a Phaser II from the ship's weapons locker (I had the one I had taken from Tomean) and we hid in cover some distance from the ship. Soon an Orion and a Klingon(!) began to approach the Einstein, weapons drawn. We ambushed them and stunned them both before they could react. We swiftly immobilized them and stashed them in the shuttlecraft, where McCormick covered them with one of the Federation Phaser Rifles they had both had.

Putar, Ballard, and I went to investigate the other ship. We discovered and disarmed a security system rigged, apparently, to a self-destruct mechanism. Inside we found a dead Jindarian, apparently killed with an explosive collar, wearing a partial exoskeleton like the one we found onboard the asteroid (this is now in Starfleet custody). We additionally found many cargo containers full of similar-but-not-identical bundles of leaves, which I surmised to be drugs or drug precursors of some kind. I did not have sufficient training to be able to identify them on my own.

A couple hours later, the Yorktown arrived and secured the area; our captives were taken into custody and we were brought back onboard. This concluded our mission, as further system survey was conducted by more experienced hands aboard the Yorktown itself.

All in all, I think we performed quite well. I have two major qualms: first, if the neutrino beam was actually the Jindarian transmitting to us and not an automated system, we may have doomed him by mentioning the beam to Thumi (although it seems unlikely that his captors would have let him survive very long in any case; explosive collars are not generally indicative of a good working relationship). Second, I very much hope that there was not a cache of slaves aboard the asteroid that we failed to find before it blew up. It would have been nice to have been able to not leave two immobilized prisoners to die aboard their exploding asteroid, but on the other hand, they were the ones who set it to blow up in the first place.

On the positive side of the ledger, we now have both an Orion smuggler-and-pirate and his Klingon co-conspirator to interrogate, which may shed more light on the Klingon plans for the border, and we have a couple of examples of Jindarian technology (an undamaged ship's boat and a fancy exoskeleton) that may be new to the Federation, as well as the contents of the hold (which may lead us to an Orion drug ring), and, finally, a new Class M planet which really appears to be an ideal site for a curiously well-defended colony.

In summary, for a mission that was intended to be a routine survey of an uninhabited system (and during which, therefore, we were unprepared to meet any significant resistance), I feel we performed admirably given the staffing and materiel constraints within which we worked. Our leader, Lt. J.G. McCormick, performed with professionalism and aplomb when confronted with a mission that turned out very differently than expected. I would like to especially recommend Ballard for commendation; despite the quite distracting attentions of Remla, he reacted swiftly and decisively when our hosts betrayed us, and his marksmanship and his piloting of the damaged shuttlecraft were top-notch. Putar's electronics skills were also very valuable, and I wish Ensign Mkele a speedy recovery.

This was to have been a routine mission of anthropological inquiry, to a planet in the just-barely-charted 34K/iii system, under the command of Lt. J.G. Ernie Pearyer.

From a political standpoint, this mission might have been a little sensitive. 34K/iii was on the disputed border between Federation and Klingon space, and both civilizations claimed it as within their space. The planet was relatively metal-rich, including exotic metals, and so may have presented a tempting target for a Klingon conquest--certainly, had it not had sentient life, the Federation would likely have begun a mineral extraction operation.

It was known that 34K/iii had a sentient species--felinoid, but quite humanoid, certainly more so than the Kzinti--with Neolithic/early Bronze Age cultures. The species appeared to have two major social types--one was a nomadic hunter-gatherer (and perhaps raider) culture, while the other built village-scale settlements, with agriculture and animal husbandry.

The plan was for us to land, set up surveillance, collect enough data that we could produce a translation chip, and then, perhaps, ultimately disguise ourselves and go among the natives. This was obviously mostly the purview of Lt. Pearyer and Ensign Mkele; I, Lt. Lynn, Ensign Putar, and Ensign Ballard rounded out the team.

Knowing that these sorts of routine missions are rarely without complication, Ballard managed to procure a staff with a Phaser II concealed inside it. We were issued two chameleon suits for the team. A recommendation of mine for future surveys of this nature is that enough suits for the entire team be provided, for reasons which will shortly become evident.

We were beamed down without incident in the hills above a valley where a number of small settlements--one recently burned--were. We selected twelve points where we had disguised surveillance devices inserted, and began collecting data.

While data was being collected, Mkele and I went on a trek to a nomad encampment about three hours' hike away, wearing chameleon suits. We observed a fairly typical hunter/gatherer/raider culture, and noted that that it appeared to be a matriarchal society, and that two high-ranking females were arguing about something. The nomads were armed with, primarily, a device like an atlatl that threw sharpened metal discs at high speeds, but which could also be flipped around to act as a buckler. The nomadic society appeared to have a good deal of metal weaponry and adornment, which was somewhat strange, as anvils and forges are not generally portable. They rode bipedal/quadrupedal animals (they generally stood erect at rest, but ran on all fours) which allowed them to travel at a high rate of speed relative to humanoid walking speed.

The villages typically were provided with high wooden walls with lookout platforms, and grazing and agricultural areas outside them. These appeared to be mostly matriarchal, but not exclusively (one of perhaps ten villages had a male tribal leader).

A separate team investigated the burned-out settlement, and found many bodies, including men, women, and children, apparently indiscriminately slaughtered. Most of these appeared to be settlers, although there were also a few nomads. However, entry to the settlement had not been forced--the gates had not been barred, although it was clear from our images of the other settlements that bars were present on the village gates. We recommended that the Yorktown beam up some of the corpses (of both types) for study, which they did, and then beamed them back down.

The Yorktown left orbit. We were able to quickly acquire a lexicon and begin to translate the conversations of the natives. We quickly learned--once they discovered the burned settlement--that the wholesale slaughter of inhabitants was a new and shocking developments: in times past, nomads had occasionally raided, but contented themselves with carrying off goat analogs. Murdering a whole village was completely unprecedented.

This, as you may imagine, caused my paranoid Security reflexes to trigger. At this point I immediately suspected that the nomads were receiving coaching and perhaps material aid from Klingons, who had taught them this new psychopathic mode of raiding. Lt. Pearyer seemed rather dismissive of my concerns, but then again, the Sciences Division has the luxury of not assuming the worst about the beings they meet.

Ballard and I took the chameleon suits and headed back to the nomad encampment, taking with us the surveillance device from the burned-out village. Our plan was to place it within one of the leaders' tents, to see if we could record a conversation which suggested they were receiving outside aid.

As we arrived, preparations for a raid were evidently in progress. It was obvious which tent we should bug, since the head of one of the two arguing warriors was on a pike outside the other one's tent. We waited until the women warriors left, and moved stealthily in. Inside the chief's tent, we found a helmet, of, basically, Roman design--open face with noseguard, crest--which we had not seen either settlers or nomads wearing (nor had the chief taken it with her on her raid). We radioed the rest of our team with the direction they had gone (towards the burned village). We listened to conversations between the men and children and determined that Utta was the surviving chief, and that she had beheaded her rival Xe.

The other team were able to see the raiding party recover their dead for burial.

Within the next few days, we were able to overhear a conversation between Utta and another high-status femal, R'latyl, in which they agreed to "meet with the strangers tomorrow." I took a chameleon suit and headed out to surveil that meeting and confirm my suspicions.

Our general plan was to disguise ourselves as survivors of a similar raid and to try to muster collectivized resistance to the raiders (called "Riders" by the settlers). However, as you will see, we never got that far.

Ballard assumed native disguise, along with a bandage on his leg (giving him a reason to have his staff) and a bloody bandage on his head (giving a plausible explanation for why he could not speak), and headed towards the burned-out settlement, which we thought might perhaps be the rendezvous point.

It turned out it wasn't. In my chameleon suit, I was able to follow R'latyl and Utta not very far from their camp to a clearing in a wooded area. Two Klingons--a male, and an extremely tall female--beamed down, and here's where everything went pear-shaped.

I had left my tricorder outside my chameleon suit, back in the woods a ways, and had moved away from it; that way, it could record video and I could hear (and record, and transmit) what happened.

The female began scanning, and immediately found the tricorder. She shouted "Your enemies are here!" and both of them went to pick up the tricorder. I stunned her, and then the other one. I had planned at that point to take them captive, but six--yes, six--Klingons then beamed down, so I stunned Utta. Putar had the brilliant idea to tell me how to say "You have angered the spirits!" so I shouted that at the other native, who fled with a great deal of alacrity. I think R'latyl will not be eager to cooperate with the Klingons in future.

I scooped up the tricorder and a Klingon communicator--my own communicator having suddenly gone dead--and fled, with disruptor fire shredding the trees around me.

Unfortunately, the Klingons knew where our cave was, and swiftly captured the four members of our team there. They announced they would execute their hostages if the entire team did not reassemble. We did not know if they knew how many we were, and Ballard was in native disguise, but he had replied "acknowledged" when the demand was made, so we knew that the Klingons knew there was at least one more of us. I went back to the burned-out village, and stashed my tricorder, the communicators, and my phaser inside my chameleon suit under one of the platforms; near it I drew, with some of the ubiquitous charcoal, a rainbow and a caricature of the Tin Woodsman, which I figured would make sense to Ballard but not to anyone else.

Then I returned to the cave. I was immediately taken prisoner by the Klingons, who then let us know that they wanted the sixth of us to appear. We did not know how they knew there were six. Putar tried a tearful histrionic "Ballard died!" but she didn't convince anyone. Then Pearyer blanced and said "The Klingon Empire has just declared war on the Federation." The Klingons raised their guns. It looked like the end.

And then they dropped their guns and jumped back. I stepped forward and socked the guard in front of me, and my hand began to burn as if I had thrust it into a flame. As we were all standing around in confusion, Ballard, in his native guise, stepped forward, holding his staff like Moses, and announced that this world was for neither the Empire nor the Federation, but belonged to its own inhabitants. It was a fantastic Moses-like moment, spoiled only by the fact that when the Klingon commander punched him, he fell down unconscious. However, the commander had the same sensation I did, and so the Klingons couldn't harm any of us.

After a very short while, it became obvious that hostilities would be met with unbearable (but non-injurious) pain. This was apparently the doing of the Organians, whoever they are--later developments showed them to be near-omnipotent beings of pure energy, who didn't want the Klingons and the Federation going to war. We spent an uncomfortable few days shoreside until the Yorktown arrived to bear us away.

I felt that we conducted ourselves in an exemplary fashion on this mission. My suspicions turned out to be right on the money. True, we all would have been slaughtered if the Organians had not intervened, but we had put together a reasonable plan for resistance that might have held off the Klingon-masterminded conquest for long enough for the Yorktown to return. I also would like to apologize unreservedly for my prior conviction that anthropology was boring. Working with Mkele to figure out how the native cultures operated was surprisingly fascinating, and I now understand how Science Division can get so absent-minded and abstracted when studying recondite problems.

Ensign Ballard deserves special commendation for his performance as Native Spirit Moses--he had some of the Klingons ready to kneel and worship him. It was a truly awe-inspiring performance.

For the eyes of First Officer Maria Sanchez ONLY.  Contains highly confidential material.

In the months after our previous Survias adventures, I and the rest of the team underwent intensive therapy to attempt to recover our missing memories.  These sessions did not produce much other than the conviction that the 1939 Wizard of Oz film was somehow very important.  Ballard recovered a memory of being in a room with several sealed adult-sized incubator pods; this would be consistent with our suspicions of having been cloned.  I remembered an ether/alcohol hospital small.  Putar recalled taking to a woman like Judy Garland.  Ballard's research revealed that there was a planet, Cosplay 5, not very far from Survias that did a brisk trade in slightly creepy fetishistic hanging-out-with-celebrities impersonation vacations; it seems plausible that they have a Wizard Of Oz tour, although we did not finish investigating this possibility.

Ensign Mkele acted as our therapist during this process and she herself obtained psychiatric help from First Officer Sanchez.  I would like to commend her professionalism and skill in helping us overcome a trauma while herself dealing with it as well.

After weeks, when we had recovered all of the memories we felt could safely be retrieved, Ballard prepared for a practical test: he decided to view The Wizard of Oz while Mkele watched his reaction.  He sat up and stared straight ahead when the Scarecrow asked "Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?"

A little experimentation revealed that all of us replied to "How do you talk without a brain?" (the movie's previous line) with "Some people...", and that if then the interlocutor followed up with Dorothy's next line, "Yes, I guess you're right," then any of us would carry out the next thing that person asked us to do, and have no memory of having done it.

I myself appear to be missing a couple seconds, but from the reactions of everyone else in the room, I think maybe someone made me kiss Keaton Ballard.  Ew.

At any rate, between the work of Mkele (for Ballard, Putar, and myself) and Sanchez (for Mkele), we were all successfully deprogrammed.  Thank goodness.

I also learned, pursuant to our last mission, that the Treaty of Organia is proceeding and that the Organians seem to reward efficiency, and have no particular problem with the unsavory aspects of the Klingon Empire, such as slavery.  I don't have much to connect with this, but I found it a somewhat disturbing discovery.

Some months of fairly routine shipboard duty passed.  During this time I completed my Hand Phasers certification and I therefore believe that I have finished requirements for consideration for promotion to Lieutenant, Junior Grade.

On Stardate 6803.19, We were summoned to a briefing by First Officer Sanchez, and she gave us an assignment that was to be kept hidden from everyone else on the ship.  Even my superior, Sudek, was not at the briefing, which I found very surprising.  The Yorktown's cover mission was that it was doing a survey of a pre-Warp civilization, and thus would remain hidden from the planet.

Constan Hipli, a Federation Intelligence officer, had not reported from Survias for three months, although he had previously been reporting more or less weekly.  As the other five experts on Survias within all of the Federation, apparently, we were tasked with finding out what had befallen him.  We would be given subcutaneous transponders so that we could summon the Yorktown back to beam us out.  An Intelligence Officer also briefed us but would tell us very little, although we did find out that the Federation supported, or at least tolerated, the Royc, as less bad than many of the alternatives; that her Health Minister Horez Sutyn had been assassinated the day after we left Survias the previous time; and that his replacement Lors, a Klingon, was worse in just about every possible way.  We suspected immediately that Lors was scheming to take the place of the Royc and that a Klingon in charge of a planet full of augmented slaves would not be good news for the Federation.

We devised a set of signals based on gestures with our implanted transponders that would allow us to generate data, such as "the subject has been located alive," "the subject has been located deceased," and so on.  We also agreed on a couple of signals that were "beam us out immediately," one of which we could do even if immobilized.

Given what little we had to go on, we decided to beam down in the disused subway tunnels near the Society of Infectious Concepts (SIC) headquarters.  Sanchez initiated subspace communication with the mercenary crew at the spaceport outside the forcefield and advised them to drop the force field as we beamed down.  We arrived in our uniforms at Sanchez's insistence, although Ballard did disguise himself so that he was not immediately obvious as the attempted assassin of Royc.  We immediately changed into local garb (the ubiquitous white jumpsuit), and I cautiously approached the voices and lights at the end of the tunnel.

I recognized the rebel leader Steve's voice, and allowed myself to be seen.  He was overjoyed to see us again although a bit suspicious, since we had evidently breached what seemed like pretty good security. However, he informed us that we needed to meet a man named Katon.  We did so: Katon was an Andorrian and clearly higher up in the SIC organization than Steve.

We determined that the political situation was largely unchanged, and that the change in Health Ministers was (as had been reported by Federation Intelligence) much for the worse.  We had a bit of a surprise when we showed Constan Hipli's picture to Steve and Katon: they gasped and said "Oh!  You're Federation Intelligence, aren't you?"  We of course would neither confirm nor deny such speculation.  The story they gave was consistent with what we had learned in our briefing: Constan had last been seen or heard from about three months previously, and the rebels' supplies were running low.  Apparently Constan had been working with SIC.  This made us feel somewhat better, since in our previous visit to Survias, it had appeared that SIC were much closer to being the good guys than the Royc's government.

Steve and Katon suspected that Hipli had been imprisoned in Health Police Central.  As they, ominously, put it, after three months, we should all hope he was dead, for his sake.  We asked about the "dungeon" they'd hinted at on our previous visit, and they suggested that it was probably the lower level of cells in HPC.  They also said that, effectively, no governmental practices had changed, and that although HPC had been more paranoid about its defenses for a few months after the jailbreak and destruction of the armory (see my previous mission report for details), things were back to normal.

Thus, we hatched a plan.  In return for whatever data we collected, we would disguise ourselves as government officials (I and Ballard impersonated Health Police officers, Lynn dressed up as Medicorps, and Putar and Mkele were computer technicians), infiltrate Health Police Central, and attempt to gain access to their records to see if we could determine whether Hipli had been taken into custody.  We would additionally see what other opportunistic action we could take to discover more about what atrocities Lors and his predecessor might have been up to.

The only difficulty here would be gaining access to a computer terminal, as they were few, generally occupied, and the programmers were a tight-knit clique.  Thus we developed a plan.  Knowing the germophobia endemic to Survian society under the Royc, we would disguise Ballard's tricorder as a Survian scanner, and then the two Health Police would escort the Medicorps officer on a routine scan for viruses.  She would, of course, find one, would order the poor unfortunate manning it to report for immediate quarantine and disinfection at the hospital, and would then call in computer techs to assist with disinfection of the terminal.  At this point, Putar would work her magic and infiltrate the system. 

Steve was happy to be our driver–and then our ambulance for the victim of our faked outbreak–and so we donned disguises and proceeded to HPC.  

The plan went, if I do say so myself, just about perfectly.  Even before we approached a terminal, Ballard picked up Hipli's DNA, on the lower level, devoid of vital signs.  At this point he and I conferred (with our transponders overlapping for the agreed-upon 80 seconds) to send the signal that the subject had been located, but was deceased.  Then we picked out a victim.  Lynn terrified the "contaminated" tech, which gave Ballard and me the perfect cover to suggest that everyone else depart the area quickly.  I put a hasty patch on the security system to loop the cameras to give us just a little cover.  Putar and Mkele swept in, the unfortunate tech was whisked to the hospital by Steve, and Putar began by locating Hipli's record.  Then she was able to determine a few very interesting items:

First, Sutyn, the previous Health Minister, had made an off-planet transmission (which, please note, indicates that the mercenary crew guarding the spaceport are subornable) on Stardate 6612.14 requesting biomemetic gel.  Mkele, who apparently paid more attention in her Law classes than the rest of us, recognized that as an attempt to acquire an extremely illegal item.

However, this paled in comparison to the footage we recovered of Lors performing vivisection experiments that are, even to my untrained eyes, clear attempts to create chimeras.  Having a Klingon (who may well be loyal to the Klingon Empire) attempting to create chimeras from a planet of captive augments, strikes me as an extremely grave threat to Federation security.  Remember also that, based on "Ballard"'s attempted assassination of the Royc and the matter of our post-hypnotic triggers, that some Survian faction evidently possesses cloning technology, and so any crime can be pinned on anyone whose DNA sample they have managed to extract.  If you take no other recommendation from this report, take this one: Lors must be stopped.

We also retrieved some records of use to SIC but not, perhaps, to us: floorplan of the facility, prisoner records, et cetera.

Once Putar had retrieved this, we got word that quite a few Health Police–no doubt alerted by the consternation of the techs fleeing the contaminated computer room–were converging on HPC.  So Lynn quickly taped off the "infected" machine with biohazard tape, and we split up, melded into the crowd, reassembled at our pre-specified drop point, and made our way back to SIC HQ.  

Once we were there, we bid our farewell to Steve and Katon after handing over the records we had exfiltrated, ducked back down the subway tunnel, changed back into our Starfleet uniforms (with the exception of Ballard, who remained in his boxer-briefs, for reasons I do not fully understand), and gave the signal requesting pickup.  Soon we were beamed aboard the Yorktown.  We gave a quick debrief to Sanchez and the Intelligence Officer and then returned to our quarters.

This mission was a complete success.  My hunch to beam down near the SIC proved to be the ideal way to locate Hipli.  We did not have to engage in any violence, and other than vastly inconveniencing one local, who is doubtless in for a rough couple days in decontamination, we caused no property damage.  We came away with what I think is very valuable evidence.  To wit:

1. We now know that Constan Hipli is dead.  If "Constan Hipli" should reappear, he is a clone, and he is not working for the Federation. See the attached tricorder dump for coordinates, should the Federation wish to recover his remains.
2. Hipli was working with the rebel group SIC; in our judgment (and we are, apparently, the field operatives with the greatest firsthand knowledge of Survias), SIC would be a much less malefic government than the Royc.
3. It is absolutely true that, although unsavory, the Royc is not nearly as dangerous as her lieutenants have been.  Sutyn was attempting to place an order for biomemetic gel, and I will eat my Starfleet Issue Boxer-Briefs if that isn't somehow related to the Survian cloning project.  Lors is trying to create augment chimeras, and quite apart     from the terrible consequences should he succeed and be able to deploy them against the Federation, his methods are monstrous.  He is vivisecting sentient beings in pursuit of his illegal goals.  He must be stopped.

Obviously, we are never going to know what the next steps will be.  And frankly, I would rather not know.  The mere existence of Survias still disturbs me; but its existence disturbs me a lot less than the possibility that its citizenry, who are, by and large, innocent of any criminal intent–simply having the bad luck to be augments or children of augments, a fate they themselves had no role in choosing–could be weaponized by the Klingon Empire and turned against the Federation. Klingons appear to be extremely rare in Survian society.  We have indicated the location of Lors' office on the map of Health Police Central, and he also clearly spends a good deal of time in the downstairs operating theatre.  Identifying and extracting him from that location, I will suggest, should not be a particularly difficult problem for an organization that can command the kind of resources necessary to secretly divert a Constitution-class starship for 48 hours and deceive its entire crew as to the nature of the delay.

Finally, we offer our sincere condolences to the colleagues, friends, and family of officer Constan Hipli.

Apropos of, apparently, nothing, I was directed to report to a briefing room.  There I found my usual compatriots on away teams, as well as an ensign I did not know (one Hugo Alphaeus), Lt. Cmdr. Sanchez, and Cmdr. Sudek, as well as three civilians: one Prellarian named Rosin, and his employers, Mark and Shaes Sterling.

They related a story of their woes.  They were the son of the founder of the Sterling Agricultural District on a backwater planet known as Bruese--notable mainly for its high (1.5 G) surface gravity--along with his wife and their hired hand.

The Sterling Agricultural District (henceforth SAD), they said, had recently been the target of raiders, mostly Prellarian (this was not, in fact, strange: the planet is about 2/3 Prellarian).  The culprit was said to be the governor of the next district over (Lake Flagon) shaking down the farming community.  The planetary governor seemed to take no interest in the matter and the Sterlings and their faithful farmhand Rosin had taken it upon themselves to petition Starfleet for aid.

I asked Cmdr. Sudek if this was not a purely internal matter, and why it should be considered Starfleet's business at all: surely protocol was to remand this to the local authorities; he merely nodded.

Nevertheless, the Sterlings showed video recordings of the latest raid.  There were 191 people in the SAD co-op.  A vehicle with 12 combatants showed up.  There was a firefight: the leader of the raiders appeared to be human-sized, and was using a rainbow laser, typical of mercenary companies everywhere.  I did note that as soon as the fighting started, the raiders appeared to react as a well-disciplined unit, taking orders from their leader and fighting in good order (unlike the civilian population of the SAD co-op).  There were casualties on both sides: 4 dead, 8 wounded.  The wounded included the senior Sterling, founder of the colony.

Lt. Cmdr. Sanchez was at great pains to point out that any sightseeing on Bruese would not be an official Starfleet investigation and that we were under no compunction to go dig around the situation on the ground at Bruese.  Nevertheless, we agreed to go have a look.  Cmdr. Sudek did not recognize the specific tactics employed by the raiders, but agreed that they looked to have some military training.  From all this, I gathered that Starfleet suspects off-world influence in this matter, but does not yet have actionable intelligence--which, presumably, is where we come in.

We prepared to depart with the Sterlings.  I did a bit of research and utterly failed to find any record of a "Lake Flagon District" on the planet--this "governor" appears to be a self-styled petty dictator of an unrecognized principality.  

We decided it might not be the best course of action to show up as Starfleet.  I concocted an identity as Francois Chemise-Rouge of Imaginative Security Solutions, LLC, the face man for a small and hungry mercenary company, being interviewed by the Sterlings for possible use in their defense.  We agreed to fill the Sterlings' cargo hold with an administrative shuttlecraft, and I also took a fitted exoskeleton (for the high-G environment), 2kg of sunflower seeds, and a small weight set, so that I could work on my strength training in a high-G environment.

We departed for Bruese in the Sterlings' freighter.

Part way there, we were forced to drop out of warp, as the engines were acting strange.  Investigation revealed that some insulating shielding had been removed, and that to continue would have led to our almost-certain destruction.  I attempted to send word of this on narrowbeam communication to the Yorktown, and discovered our transmissions had been jammed.  At this juncture, I ordered all aboard to don vac suits, which turned out to be a very good hunch to have followed.

Passive scans revealed an unknown ship very nearby.  That seemed somewhat suspicious since our position was best described as "the posterior end of nowhere."  Very shortly, we heard signs of forced entry at one of the hatches.  Alphaeus, Ballard, and I took up defensive positions, and sure enough the hatch blew outward, exposing the whole ship to vacuum (which would have killed all aboard if we had not been wearing vac suits).  Alphaeus and I shot at the two visible intruders, and hit them, but did not penetrate their armor.  We both had very lucky near-misses from the intruders' laser fire.  Ballard burned a hole in one intruder's suit, and my second shot burned through the second one's armor as well, leaving those two floating dead.  I started to exit, but ceased when I saw the boots of a third assailant above the airlock.  I was attempting to figure out how to capture him alive for interrogation when Putar fixed the warp drive and took us out--the person clinging to the hull was dislodged at that point, and we presume his atoms are scattered across a large volume of space.

The unknown ship, which was ridiculously fast (and operating without proper shielding on its engines, consistent with the practices of Orion pirates), caught up to us quickly, but we were able to send a message to the Yorktown, which promised to be on its way.

Here we engaged in a little subterfuge.  All of us except Ballard crowded into the shuttlecraft, which detached from the freigher but tried to stay within its radar shadow.  On a signal, Ballard zoomed away in one direction, and we, with Putar attempting to disguise our signature, escaped in the other.

The pirates took the bait and chased Ballard, and thus the Yorktown was able to pick up our shuttlecraft and then return before the freighter was destroyed.  When the pirates saw a Constitution-class ship appear, they turned tail.  We recovered the bodies of the two Ballard and I had killed, and, lo and behold, one was an Orion.  What a surprise.  I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

So it appears that Sanchez's and Sudek's suspicions are justified.  We still don't have more than circumstantial evidence, but someone sabotaged the freighter, and knew just where it would have to drop out of warp if it were not to be destroyed.  The odds against a pirate ship just happening to be in that particular patch of nowhere were very long.

Something nefarious is clearly going on, but we don't really know what yet other than that it probably involves the Orions.  Perhaps we will find out more when we actually arrive at Bruese.  This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to in order to murder three particular farmers and extract a pittance from a small colony of poor agriculturalists.  Something smells fishy.  With luck we will determine exactly what it is.

My commendation for this most recent escapade must go to Keaton Ballard, who bravely risked life and limb to draw the Orion pirates away so that the rest of us could escort the civilians to safety.

We continued our investigation of the harassment of the Sterling farming community on Planet Bruce.  After the sabotage of Sterling freighter and subsequent attack in deep-space by the believed-to-be Orion pirates - the Sterling’s strong insinuation that Orion pirates or slavers may be behind the aggression on their compound had more credibility.

We landed at the spaceport on Bruce. I must report the shocking lack of discipline and protocol-adherence at the spaceport crew. Mark Sterling nonchalantly stated it takes an hour or more for routine post-landing clearance.

We used the downtime get some refreshment a brief respite at the spaceport dive bar. Mkele, Putar,  and Alpheaus engaged a local prospector who stated that corporate interests had pushed out all independent prospecting work. He stated he had identified a significant dilithium deposit near (or directly at) the Sterling farm. He failed to file a claim so there is no record of this.

Arthur Sterling arrived via ground transport and their freighter had finally cleared it’s cursory (nonexistent?) post landing customs inspection. We were readying to leave for the farm when they received a radio transmission stating the compound was under active attack.

We realized that normal transport would take many hours to get there the decision was made to use the shuttlecraft. Aura Putar made remarkably quick and remarkably effective modifications to the engines to get us their quicker. We donned our Starfleet armor. I identified ourselves as Starfleet officers on Federation business to ground control and asked that they hold all traffic until we cleared the area. Putar’s mods allowed us to get there in a dozen-odd minutes. Amazing.

When we arrived we found the compound besieged by a dozen, well-armed, well-armored and well-disciplined mercenaries attempting to kidnap Sterling men, woman - and  I’m sickened to report - *children*! Seeing that the farm hands were clearly overmatched, it was clear we had to act.  I landed the shuttle near the Merc’s armored personnel carriers, intending to give my shipmates maximum cover. They engaged the mercs with non-lethal force.  The merc’s were not expecting significant resistance but were boarding their transports with hostages and it seemed likely they could escape without more concerted efforts on our part. I moved the shuttle to offer better field-of-fire and to block 2 of 3 possible avenues of egress by the Merc’s.

I was engaged in flying the shuttle and didn’t have the best view of the action but I understand they disabled many mercs but the aggressors were getting closer to driving away with hostages. Aura asked me to position the shuttle closer to one of the carriers so she could jump into it and disable it. She made it into the carrier successfully and was instrumental in subduing the mercs and preventing further civilian injuries.

A carrier began pulling away, with other carrier successfully disabled thanks to the heroic efforts of Putar and Vorisgn we pursued the mobile carrier with Alphaeus, Mkele and Shay Sterling. We had superior speed, cover and position and were able to disable the escaping Mercs. While we were using non-lethal force, Shay was using a civilian laser weapon and killed a merc, which is regrettable.

Back at the compound, we bound and searched the Mercs. We found no identifying papers or marks. Alphaeus confirmed the presence of a dilithium deposit under the Sterling farm. The merc refused to offer information willingly. The leader offered to give up some information in exchange for the safe release of his remaining men. We agreed to release them 5K from the star port, unarmed and un-armored. Once their release was confirmed the Merc Leader gave us the name of their main contact and the location of their base. He guided us there were we confronted the Merc Handler. After firm questioning he admitted to hiring the mercs to harass (or worse) the Sterlings in an attempt to get them to leave the area so they could  freely mine the dilithium vein and keep all profits.

We found evidence in the base that clearly implicates principals in one of the larger local mining companies in this despicable endeavor. It is obvious to this Starfleet Officer that there are many layers of complicity at the regional, planetary and quadrant level. I trust that the proper authorities will be giving this testimony and evidence so they pursue the bad-actors, bring them to justice and take the appropriate corrective actions. I will, of course, make myself available in any capacity to see that justice is done.

It seems now that Sterling Farm incident was, in fact, a plantary-local matter.  The Orion attack on the Sterling freighter while enroute to Bruce is troubling. It could be that their ship was targeted for sabotage and capture by the Orions at ‘random’. I’m not ready to say it was pure coincidence.

Additional notes: Aura Putar deserves special recognition for her inventive, effective technical skills and her selfless bravery during the compound attack. Vorisgn was his usual steady, effective self. I look forward to further missions with Alphaeus whose thoughtful input and effective action was enormously helpful. Mkele’s skills in observation and behavioral discernment were invaluable in providing insight into the thoughts and intentions of the many actors involved in this mission.

Ballard was requested by First Officer Sanchez to assemble a team. When we went into the briefing room, we saw two human civilians, and a male Prellarion. The humans were Mark and Sheas Sterling, a couple. The Prellarion, Rosin. Sanchez told us that they are from the colony of Breuse, and that they have a problem we could help with.

Mark's father was the founder of the Sterling agriculutural district. There are raiders that have been demanding money and tribute. The raiders are mostly Prellarion. From the Lakeflagon District, supposedly, demanding "taxes". There have been casualties on both sides. Shown video. About a dozen armed men, on one vehicle. When firing, shown to have gotten training, fought cohesively. 191 in Sterling district. 4 dead 8 wounded 4 homes burned. 

Atilla noticed that they had old beam weapons, aside from the man in charge, who had a current one. Mkele doesn't think that the Sterlings have been dishonest.

After a brief trip down to Breuse to get civilian weapons and body armor, we go with the Sterlings in their freighter down to the surface. On the way there, I had a feeling in my gut that something was wrong with the ship, and went to investigate the engine room. There, I saw that the shielding protecting the ship's warp drive had been purposefully sabotaged. If left unchecked, the warp drive would overheat and cause our extremely unpleasant and not to mention untimely deaths. I was able to patch it up enough that we weren't in any immediate danger, but this event obviously left our group with a bad feeling. After scanning the Sterlings and Rosin for any radiation, to see if they had for some reason tampered with their warp drive, we determined that the craft must have been tampered with during our brief foray on Breuse to procure our civilian equipment.

Oh a whim, we looked out one of the portholes and saw that there was a large spacecraft coming towards us - fast. Thanks to Ensign Vorosign's quick assessment of the situation, we were all able to get into our vacc-suits, with Ensigns Alpheaus and Vorosign taking cover in the cargo hold of the ship, and I in the engine room to ensure that our warp drive was fine. I am unsure as to where Ensign Mkele was. It is very fortunate that we were all in our vacc suits, as the cargo door was busted open from the outside and flung into space. Men in vacc suits tried to board the vessel, but Alpheaus and Vorosign were able to hold them off long enough for Ballard to warp us a short distance away. Two men were left floating, and one is currently smeared across space itself, as he had been hanging on to the outisde of our ship when we warped. 

This was when we engaged in some subterfuge; everyone but Ballard went into the shuttle while Ballard stayed behind to pilot the freighter. I was able to mess with our electronics so that the other ship would think that we were only one vehicle, instead of two, and we took the shuttle underneath the freighter. As Ballard piloted the freighter away, the rest of us in the shuttle were able to escape from underneath the bandits' noses. After sometime, and some frantic warping about on Ballard's part, we were able to be picked up by the Yorktown. Upon seeing our glorious Constitution-class starship, the pirates turned tail and fled. Ballard was recovered, and we were left with many questions and not enough answers.

Later, we were finally able to make it to Breuse's surface. Mark told us that it would take about an hour for the ship to go through customs, so the rest of us went to explore the nearby area. 

We entered a bar called Pablo's Place. It was a dim dive bar, and there were many miners and mercenaries, along with several ladies of ill repute and an old man sitting at the bar. We learned from Shay that the elderly gentleman, named Colby, was practically a fixture of the place. Vorosign seemed to notice someone that interested him, but I was unable to see who, as it was then that Alpheaus and I went to see if there was anything unusual going on in the immediate area. After scanning discretely and then again not so discretely with the tricorder, we were able to divine that there was in fact absolutely nothing suspicious about the nearby ships or area. We returned to the bar. 

Shay had gotten us a table, where I went to sit with Mkele. Vorosign was at the bar, sipping two local ales and looking mildly dejected, and Ballard briefly appeared to ask me for credits before running off in search of a transaction terminal with a subspace link. 

Mkele and I finished our drinks and then headed to the bar next to Colby. After buying him a few rounds of beer, we found out that he had arrived a few decades ago, and was one of the first prospectors on Breuse. He had, in fact, found large amounts of dilithium around Lake Flagon. Mkele and I shared a glance, the two of us beginning to realize the motivations behind attempting to scare the colonists away from that area. 

About an hour later, Ballard came back from a seperate room with an attractive Vulcan woman, looking incredibly smug and pleased with himself. The woman had a normal Vulcan expression. 

Mark told us that his father had arrived (our ride), and that it was time to go. Shortly after beginning our travel to the Sterling Agricultural Colony, Arthur Sterling (Mark's father) recieved a distress call from the colony, saying that they were under attack. We were still over a half hour away. After a few minutes of creative mechanics on my part, we were able to warp to the colony despite the fact that we were still in Breuse's atmosphere. We were able to get to the colony in just a few minutes. 

When we arrived, the colonists were under attack by twelve mercenaries on two armored vehicles. They were attempting to take several colonists hostage. After some shooting on both sides, Ballard was able to deftly pilot the shuttle so that I was able to jump into one of the armored vehicles. I quickly located the panels that controlled the vehicle's movement, and was in the process of setting my phaser to 'kill' in order to render the vehicle immobile when a mercenary kicked me in the arm. Before I could fire, he had a knife to my throat. I tried, in vain, to shoot him with my phaser. 

Vorosign was able to fire a wide beam stun, rendering both me and my attacker stunned for a few seconds. Vorosign then heavy stunned the mercenaries, which we are able to tie up and then interrogate. I am not proud to say that I used unnecessary physical force with the mercenary that had held me at knifepoint. I gave him a solid punch across the face, due entirely to my personal feelings regarding his holding me (temporarily) hostage. I assure you that I will not let my emotions get in the way of my duty as a Starfleet officer in the future. 

We tried to interrogate the apparent leader of the group, but he was unwilling to offer up any information unless we set his men free. Mkele wanted to use pyschology and hypnotism to make him give us the answers, but we ultimately followed his demands, understanding that we would have to let the little fish go in order to catch the bigger ones. Vorosign and Ballard dropped them off at the space port where we had originally docked. Upon their return, the Lieutenant told us that while he didn't know anyone actually in charge, but he knew of a Prellarion back at their base that would be able to give us the information we needed. 

Dressed in the mercenaries' armor and taking their vehicles, we went to their base, with the full cooperation of the Lieutenant. Once inside we quickly went to the mess hall, where the Prellarion, "Wesley", was eating. Vorosign took him by the arm and then we all went back to the shuttle that Ballard had piloted outside of the base, but not before asking him about the dilithium mines. Mkele noticed that his eyes glanced to a certain area, and after looking for a few minutes we found a data chip. This chip estimated the Sterling Agricultural Colony at 90,000,000 credits because of the large amounts of dilithium underneath it. 

We left the base and went to the colony, where we shared the data chip with the colonists. We then went to the port, and then back to the Yorktown.

Included with this report is the data chip, which the names of the individuals involved in this plot to run the colonists off their rightful land.

Everyone performed most admirably during the mission. Vorosign, as expected, prevented our early demises, Mkele's people skills were extremely valuable, and Alpheaus was a key part of both battles. I feel as if Ensign Ballard performed very well. He stayed behind to give us a better chance during our run-in with the pirates, and without his piloting expertise I doubt that we would have been able to save the colonists in time.

Or, What I Did on My Summer Vacation

The remainder of our trip to Bruese went without further incident.  We landed at the starport and Shae and our team repaired to the spaceport bar, Pablo's Place, while Mark waited for the (lackadaisical at best) customs officials to process his ship.  The gravity was oppressive, but we were as prepared as possible, and our exoskeletons worked adequately.

The bar was typical of such establishments on the frontier: bar downstairs, tables, little dance floor, and then stairs up to a balcony, around which were little rooms for the short-time bar girls who worked the joint.  Most of these ladies of negotiable affection were human or Prellarian, but there was one who--I rubbed my eyes and checked to see if someone had slipped something in my drink--was a Vulcan.  No, seriously, a Vulcan hooker.  Here's the picture I took with my communicator <>.

If there were Vulcans here, that certainly made me suspicious that something with offworld ramifications was going on.  Although I had never heard of a Vulcan prostitute, and if it was a disguise, it was a singularly conspicuous one.  Fortunately, I was still operating as François Chemise-Rouge of Imaginative Security Solutions, LLC, and therefore I approached the Vulcan soiled dove, bought her a drink, and asked, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Her answer was, "That information will cost you 1000cr."  Although curious, I was not that curious.  I inquired if the rest of her services were similarly overpriced, at which she stated that our business was concluded, turned, and left.  Ah well.  _C'est la vie_.

However, I was not prepared for the madness that siezed Ballard at this point.  First he tried to borrow some money from me--I offered a thousand credits at 10% a month, and he didn't even blink.  But then he ran off, apparently to withdraw his life's savings from the bank even given the outrageous transaction fees of the planet's only Universal ATM.  Then he disappeared upstairs with the pointy-eared _fille de joie_, and returned about an hour later grinning like the proverbial cat who had eaten the canary.  It's his money, I suppose, but of course if stereotypes are to be believed, all you need to do to get a woman who acts just like a Vulcan in bed, is to marry a human and wait a few years.  

There's no accounting for tastes.  Anyway, Ballard seemed to regard it as money well-spent.

Anyway, scans of the other ships revealed nothing much of note: ores and a single freighter of nonliving organic materials.  All of this was perfectly consistent with what we knew about Bruese.

The other inhabitants of the bar seemed to be mostly miners and mercenaries doing high-G training.  There was one old-timer there holding court.  Putar and Mkele went over and chatted with him: his name was Colby.  He told us an interesting story.  He'd been one of the first independent miners on Bruese, fifteen or twenty years ago, before the cartels moved in five or ten years ago and muscled all the independents out.  He'd worked for them for a while (here he showed his Eckland Mining Company tattoo), and then been forced to quit when a rockfall took his legs.  When he learned that we were looking at a contract with the SAD, he (after his tongue was loosened by application of quite a few beers) told Putar and Mkele that he had found dilithium deposits near the SAD, by the shores of Lake Flagon, but that it was way too deep for him to reach with the resources of an independent.  He thought maybe someone else had found it too, 'cause he'd heard rumors of activity at an old pergium mine over there, which was a mine he knew to have been played out 20 years ago.

About this time Mark finally cleared customs, and it had gotten dark, so we went (sneakily, not that anyone was paying the least bit of attention) to meet his father, Alfred.  We decided to take the freighter back to the SAD (with the shuttlecraft inside), in a convoy with Alfred's transport.

Part way there, we received a distress call from the SAD.  They reported that they were under heavy attack from the mercenaries and the mercs were taking hostages.  Immediately we landed and took the shuttlecraft out of the freighter.  Putar tinkered with the engines, all the Starfleet crew got on board the shuttlecraft, and we--get this--warped in atmosphere to arrive on scene.  It was a very impressive display of engineering talent.

When we arrived the scene was pretty much as described.  Twelve mercenaries had two troop carriers, and they were dragging hostages onto them, including women and children.  They were armed with laser carbines and seemed to be wearing monocrys armor; the farmers had a few pathetic laser weapons, but mostly slugthrowers.  The mercenaries were fighting with good order and discipline, as one would expect from a well-trained crew.  The SAD colonists were grossly outmatched.

But then we arrived in a Starfleet shuttlecraft.  I sadly abandoned my François disguise, since we felt that presenting ourselves as Starfleet was likely to help the colonists' morale, discourage the mercenaries, and provide our best hope of nonlethally resolving the situation.

Ballard positioned the shuttlecraft to block the carriers' forward progress.  I was very thankful I had achieved my hand phaser certification, as wide-beam stun was exactly what this situation called for.  I quickly dropped the mercenary leader and a few of his men; I took some fire but nothing that penetrated the ablative armor that seemed to suit my François persona.  I shouted to them that we were Starfleet and they were to drop their weapons and surrender, but they did not comply.

Putar, who seemed to have lost all sense of self-preservation (perhaps the blood drain from her head in high-G was to blame), leapt aboard the merc leader's transport to try to disable the controls so they couldn't bug out.  She had apparently forgotten about the 1.5G and only managed to cling to the transport through extraordinary luck, but she did manage to lever herself inside.  I, Ensign Alphaeus, and even Ensign Mkele (!) provided covering stunner fire for her, but even so, a mercenary managed to badly hurt her arm and grapple her.  At that point, I had no alternative but to leap aboard myself to try to protect her.  I stunned one of the two mercs in the front of the transport, but the other one went supine to avoid the beam and kept his laser trained on me.  Ensign Mkele--yes, *that* Ensign Mkele stunned him, but by that time the mercenary grappling Putar had a knife to her throat and announced they were leaving.  I stunned them both.

At this point we had incapacitated everyone aboard the leader's transport, and so I went about base cycle stunning each of the mercenaries, so they would stay down, and then immobilizing them with zip-ties helpfully provided by the colonists.  When I reached the mercenary who had abused Putar, I noticed he had several rapidly-coloring contusions on his face.  He must have hit his head when he slumped to the floor, and taken some unlucky bounces.  In any event, his wounds were in no way life-threatening, and he too was in short order tied to a chair in the Town Hall.

Meanwhile, Ballard had been pursuing the other mercs and their captives; the shuttlecraft was pretty intimidating and they soon surrendered.

The mercenary crew was ten humans and two Prellarians.  Under interrogation, their leader would only state that they had gone in to do nonlethal intimidation and had only used deadly force in self-defense. <

The leader, even when we pointed out that we could simply remand him to the local authorities, who seemed to be in a lynching mood, refused to talk unless we let his men go.  Mkele wanted to do a proper old-school interrogation on the mercenaries--disrupted sleep cycle, good-cop-bad-cop, loud sounds at irregular intervals, isolation of the men from each other and cross-checking their stories--but we simply didn't have time.  We did take DNA samples of each of our captives and sent them back to the Yorktown, which, should they be re-apprehended, will make identification trivial.  <>.

So I made a decision, for which I take full responsibility: as the merc leader said, capturing the big fish might necessitate letting some of the little fish go.  We took his captured men, loaded them into the shuttlecraft, took them to a spot a few kilometers outside the spaceport, put them on the ground, called the leader so that they could confirm that we had released them, and then tossed a knife into the grass some fifty meters away so that, once they found it, they could cut their bonds.  We returned and the leader spilled what little he knew, which was that there was a weaselly little man embedded with his mercenary unit, back at their base, who was a Company Man; he claimed to not know which company.

We flew back to the mercenary base approximately 240km from the SAD; it was a very-competently concealed facility.  As the leader had told us, there were about a dozen men there, and they did indeed let us pass when he indicated that they should.  He led us to the commissary, introduced us to Wesley the Prellarian (who called the leader "Francisco").  He went a little pale when we introduced ourselves as Starfleet and told him we had a few questions.

At this point I made another decision for which I take full responsibility: I told "Francisco" that he and his men's welcome on Bruese was probably worn out.  He immediately announced the disbanding of the mercenary company, and they left on their remaining transport.

Then we interrogated Wesley.  Once again, Mkele wanted to use her full range of carefully-studied techniques, but we decided to see if we could elicit his cooperation more quickly with less scientific methods. Wesley was an employee of Nogog-Girak Mining Company, a Prellarian regional concern.  After some posturing on his part, I asked him if his interest in murdering inoffensive farmers had anything to do with the dilithium deposits under their land.  He gave an obvious (to Mkele) tell, that pointed us to a datachip, which had the following memo <>.  The interrogation, and his DNA sample, are attached: <>.

There was our smoking gun, all right.  90MCr is a lot of money.  So we arranged for the datachip's contents to make it to the SAD, and Putar made sure it was leaked to the media, so that the colonists couldn't simply be murdered to keep it silent.  Now that the settlers know what they have--and when we told them, they remembered that they had rejected a lowball buyout offer from Nogog-Girak some time before the intimidation started.  Again, I'm not too clear on the contents of my Economics courses back at the Academy, but I think the way the market is supposed to work is that if someone won't sell you something you want at the price you offer, you either don't get that thing or you raise your offering price, and that you do not, for example, resort to escalating violence to get them to surrender the thing you want.

Alas, I don't think much will ever come of this.  The planetary governor will probably get called on the carpet, some middle manager in Nogog-Girak may get fired for overstepping his bounds, but more likely will just see a reduced bonus this year, and no one responsible for ordering the terrorization and murder of the SAD colonists will go to prison.  

There is something I feel Starfleet might be able to do to affect the outcome: I would presume that the UFP government in general, and Starfleet in particular, is probably a large consumer of Nogog-Girak's dilithium.  If Starfleet were simply to stop purchasing their dilithium until an independent third-party audit of this affair was concluded, and the guilty punished, well, that might find out how far the rot went.

As far as we were able to prove, this was indeed a local matter: a mining cartel let its greed get the better of it and took illegal actions to extend its profit margin.  However, I believe that Starfleet's interference was justified, in that we were on the scene to stop a crime in progress, which we investigated due to receiving a distress call.  Even without any offworld influence, that action is well within the bounds of our mandate.

I doubt we will ever know, but I still find it very suspicious that a ship containing two random hardscrabble farmers and no known cargo was selected for hijacking by Orion Space Pirates.  That doesn't make a lot of sense, and so I wonder if perhaps the Orions were to be the ultimate consumers of the dilithium, perhaps via some sweetheart deal with Nogog-Girak.  If hints of that plot were known to others, perhaps that too would shed some light on just what a Vulcan woman of easy virtue was doing in a dive bar at a nothing spaceport on a nowhere planet on a pimple on the posterior of space.  Or, I suppose, Starfleet could authorize the release of 1000cr and simply ask her.  She's easy to find, and as she is a Vulcan, I have no doubt her answer would be truthful. It would have been helpful if Ballard had pumped her for information, rather than leaving that particular job half-finished, from our perspective, if not from his.

With reference to the guilty escaping unpunished: if no major effort is made to find out who ordered the displacement of the colonists, due to the expense and uncertainty of getting satisfactory justice, then I would suggest that I think it unlikely that Francisco and his men are going to be repeat offenders.  Kidnapping, aggravated assault, and manslaughter (as far as I can tell from the SAD's video records, Francisco's company did in fact not use deadly force until fired upon, so I believe him innocent of the charge of murder in the second degree) are of course very serious crimes.  But the Federation now has DNA signatures of half of these men, and if there is limited enforcement budget then perhaps hunting them, rather than waiting to pounce if they are taken into custody again, is not the best use of limited resources. It also may well be possible to suborn them, should the Federation need agents posing as mercenaries on the wrong side of the law, as they have a very credible incentive to encourage cooperation.

It is difficult to pick a crewmember for commendation.  As I have stated, Ballard was the leading candidate after the Space Pirate incident, but all the crew members performed well on this mission.  In addition to Ballard's heroics, Mkele displayed a hitherto-unseen-by-me verve in her determination to extract truth from prevaricating subjects, and showed off a dizzying variety of psychological techniques intended to encourage compliance.  However, I think that my ultimate choice must be for Ensign Putar, whose bravery (admittedly, bordering on foolhardiness) was exemplary: in addition to putting herself at great risk in order to prevent the escape of miscreants, she modified our shuttlecraft to travel at warp through atmosphere, so that we would be able to arrive at the colony in time to halt a very serious crime in progress.  Without her derring-do, many colonists would have been taken hostage, which would have greatly complicated our resolution of the situation.

[Note delivered to my normal commanding officer - 1st Officer Lt. Cmdr. Maria Sanchez]

Sir - I must decline to submit a formal briefing to you regarding my involvement and actions during the recent incident. I will do so once given clearance by The Captain. 

This break in chain-of-command makes me uncomfortable but under the circumstances I feel it is best for all involved. 

Respectfully,

Ensign Ballard

[Brief log delivered directly to Captain Foster]

Captain Foster, for the first time in my memory,  approached me directly to undertake a highly unusual and risky mission. The USS Karachi, a Federation ship lost 45 years ago had been found in the Romulan neutral zone. What's more it had issued a brief quarantine-break warning beacon (quickly silenced). Additionally, the ship, which had been adrift started a steady, seemingly deliberate 'drift' towards the Romulan home world. 

My usual "Away Team" volunteered to enter the Karachi, determine if, and to what extent, the Romulans had learned from her. Learn what we could of what had befallen her and to prevent the Romulans from gaining control the Karachi or the information within her.  

We heard the last log of USS Karachi Captain Joseph Mason: . Ensign Putar was given engineering data on the ship. We chose to use the Shuttle vs. beaming aboard. 

As soon as our shuttle left the docking bay a Romulan Bird-of-Prey decloaked near the Yorktown and commenced unprovoked offensive against against us.

I took us to the Karachi's open shuttle bay doors at best speed while Ensign Mkele performed a bio-scan. 

We found a single weak bio-source in the Karachi's medical bay. The rest of the ship appeared long-abandoned and open to space. There was a single shuttle in her bay.  Putar, Vorosign, Lynn, and Mkele investigated discovering dormant "nano-bots" that by all signs 'fed' on electronic circuitry. 

At this point Vorosign spotted an incoming Romulan shuttle craft. We scattered. I went for the shuttle in order to secure a hospitable environment 'zone' and mode of escape. Vorosign took up a defensive position near the main passageway leading from the shuttle bay.  Putar, Lynn, & Mkele went up 1 deck making directly towards the medical bay. 

The following events aren't entirely clear to me and I'll defer to the rest of the Away's Teams reports for specifics. For my part - I sealed the shuttle, scanned the Romulan ship for life forms. There were 8, 5 of which suddenly vanished from sensors. 

It is now clear the Romulans have a personal cloaking devices that block all manner of Federation sensors.  I 'watched' as Vorosign engaged invisible aggressors as he strategically backed down the passageway. 

I stayed in the shuttle feeling it prudent not only to secure the transport but to maintain watch over the remaining Romulans and their ship. 

Over the next hour or so I listen to my squad mates as they discovered the source of the bio-signs, defeated the cloaked Romulans (in no small part to Vorosin's continued heroic willingness to catch fire). 

I managed to briefly communicate with the Yorktown establishing how we were to effect our escape (transporter for my squad mates and Bio-form, shuttling back for me). 

I did manage to dislodge and disgorge the Romulan shuttlecraft with our shuttle before leaving. 

[Bio and non-bot scans of USS Karachi attached] [recording of communications attached]

Ensign K. Ballard

I sealed the shuttle and waited.

Follow-on to Breuse Mission Report: Pablo (barman) at Breuse Space Port is now being tried on evidence from the Planetary Governor (turned Federation witness).  This seems like an unusual ordering of ranks within the conspiracy and I am following the news.  I worry about the safety of our information source, Miner Colby, whom we discovered at Pablo's facility.

Captain Foster surreptitiously passed order for me to meet him in the shuttle bay the following day and to inform no one.  As he gave no evident sign of imposture, I, accordingly, complied to his highly unusual order.  Upon arriving in shuttle bay, no one was on shift (again unusual) and Lt. J. G. Lynn and Ensigns Ballard, Putar, and Vorosign were present.  Cpt. Foster informed us that the Yorktown had triggered a quarantine beacon from the U.S.S. Karachi, a <<>>-class craft which disappeared 45 years ago in this sector (but notably *not* within the Neutral Zone).  The Captain informed us that the quarantine beacon had been quickly extinguished by forces unknown, and that he intended to deniably-violate the Romulan Neutral Zone to investigate as he suspected Romulans had already violated the zone to silence the beacon, and possibly Federation Space, itself, to redirect the ship, and that quick action must be taken to prevent the theft of Federation technologies.  At Ballard's request, he assigned us control of the shuttle craft, Cornwallis, to dock with the Karachi in a quick, short warp jump to its site, which was, inexplicably, exactly on target to arrive at Romulus.

He provided us with the last log of Cpt. Jos. Mason of the Karachi:

The Captain, Ch. Eng. Casey, Sci. Officer Wu, and a team of engineers formed an away team to investigate an abandoned alien vessel of unknown origin.  At that time it appeared to have been abandoned, with no active lifeforms aboard, and large amounts of radionuclides indicating a significant reactor event.

We carried with us a small quantity of Dt in hopes of restoring drive to the Karachi to divert it from course to Romulan space, as well as safety equipment and some rather sophisticated vacc suits.  Vorosign also was equipped as a one-man army, but I had hoped this was due to an abundance of caution and not to any real need.

Once the Yorktown warped into position near the Karachi, our shuttle exited the bay right as comms. with the Yorktown were disrupted.  A Romulan Bird of Prey has decloaked nearby.  Ballard expertly maneuvers the craft into the Karachi's shuttle bay, which is standing open.  We scan for lifeforms, and I find a weak (human) signal from the sick bay, two decks above.  There is one Karachi shuttle (ship allotment: 4) in the bay. Putar enters the shuttle to investigate and shortly starts screaming about "nanites".  She asks for a specimen bag, and I scan her-- she has significant contamination on the gloves and arms of her suit.  This will be very difficult to decon.  When I return to the Cornwallis and scan the Karachi, I find signatures of the nanobots throughout the ship, including the sick bay.  It seems likely that these were the demise of the Karachi.  The question is how the individual in sick bay has managed to survive with all the ship's electronics liquified.

Vorosign reports seeing the Bird of Prey in a firefight with the Yorktown, and a Romulan shuttle headed our way.

Ballard moves to protect the shuttle, Vorosign takes a defensive position on the lower bay deck, and Lynn and I head toward sick bay to rescue the survivor, who appears to be slowly dying.  Putar was understandably a bit disturbed by her contamination, and appears to be pondering attacking the oncoming Romulans with nano-slime, but decides to follow us.  Their shuttle lands and door open.  Vorosign orders them to remain aboard under pain of assault.  In the meantime, Lynn has scanned them and sees three Vulcans and 5 unknown humanoids aboard.  I translate Vorosign's order into Vulcan and Romulan.  No one exits the shuttle, but the five unknown lifeforms disappear from scans.  Shortly, fire is exchanged on the decks below, although I never saw an attacker in the interchange, and the three of us head to sick bay, post haste.

We advance through the dark ship, noting malfunctioned, inactive doors along the corridor.  Sick bay doors are closed and unresponsive to the panel.  Lynn and I pull out the clamps to manually open them when a phaser rifle beam explodes in the corridor 5 meters away.  A large humanoid form shimmers for a second or two and then disappears!  We realize Vorosign has just fired on a figure attacking us who is between us.  We grab the clamps and flatten ourselves to the door.

A floating phaser appears a couple of meters below the shimmering form and fires at Vorosign and appears to do massive damage.  Vorosign shoots that attacker after Lynn launches off to tend his wound.  The second attacker's weapon is floating free.  Since these weapons are so dangerous, I time the probable arrival of our first, cloaked attacker and swing him into the bulkhead to stun him.  He does not struggle as I move to disarm him.  Lynn reports Vorosign is severely injured and Putar pulls the sick bay doors open.  It outgasses.

We hurry into sick bay and I reclose the doors.  Vorosign and Lynn work hurriedly to patch his suit as I look around for an oxygen tank to tide him over.  Putar is working on restoring atmos.  I can't find a tank with an adapter, and his life support does not pick up once the suit is patched, so I commence buddy-breathing.  Vorosign passes out at this point and Lynn treats him until his breathing renormalizes.  She shakes him awake but he is very groggy.

We fumble with the alien suit until, almost by accident, we open the faceplate and can see inside.  It's a creature I have never even heard about!  And that cloaking technology could have interesting sociological implications for this race.  It seems the Romulans have not only Vulcan allies, but this other assassin race, as well!  The suit appears to be massively damaged and will not work as a replacement for Vorosign's damaged suit (in addition to the fact that this species towers over humans.)  However, we decide to try to salvage it, if possible, for further study.  I'm attaching bioscans of the new race to this report.

Lynn and I set about checking on the ill human, and I do not see what the other two are doing with the alien's suit, but Putar starts having another psychotic break about the nanites and O2.  Vorosign suggests that we put her in the hall.  I guess early training comes back to you in emergencies, although this seems foolish with three other hostiles roaming the ship.  Ballard comms. at this point to say the three Vulcans are leaving their shuttle.  Shortly, Ballard contacts the Yorktown and asks for transporter extraction for the crew on board, with him piloting the shuttle back to the Yorktown.  They indicate they will work on this, but are very busy evading the Romulan ship.

Lynn and I scan the ill person, and see that s/he is in a suspended state, in low atmos. and a life support suit of some sort which is covered in nanites.  Upon closer exam, it seems that the lifesupport system penetrates his pleura and we can't remove it without risking life.  Also attached are molecular signature of the nano-bots.  We decide to extract him with the life support and arrange for med support in quarantine when Yorktown beams us aboard.  I normally have a strong constitution, but the condition of the person, who I am beginning to suspect is Cpt. Mason, is horrifying.

We start planning the extraction to the shuttle when the ship makes a microlurch, a firefight starts in the hall, and another small lurch occurs.  Vorosign orders the Vulcans to surrender, and I rebroadcast in Vulcan and Romulan.

We get the ready signal from the Yorktown, with Vorosign and Putar positioned on the opposite side of the door, Lynn brings the patient closer, and I bring the alien corpse into transporter range.  Ballard yells something on comms, I don't remember what and we wait for the dematerialization.  It doesn't happen for 3 or 4 minutes, and I start feeling a bit ill again, from looking at the Cpt.'s body which Lynn is propping up.

Lynn tells me she has filed recommendations for decon of our staff and recovered materials.  I hope I hear the engineer's reports on the powers of the cloaking tech., I have some theories of the effect invisibility has the pysche of individuals in such a society which I would be happy to report to the psych crew, if this is permitted.  Additionally, I would recommend Putar be assessed for PTSD.

I believe each of us performed admirably on this mission, with some ground given for Putar's extreme stress at exposure.  My only hedge is that Lynn, usually confined to medical duty and not away teams, displayed impressive coolness and presence of mind in tending Vorosign in the midst of battle with unknown and invisible assailants.  Ballard also needs a commendation for careful planning and thorough support work for the team, although it ended up not being used.

I was approached by Captain Foster, who told me to meet him in the shuttle bay in 24 hours, and to tell no one of this. He approached me when I was by myself, and as far as I know no one else was made aware of this (aside from the others of my usual group). I honestly don't know much about the Captain, which made this seem ever stranger than usual. However odd, however, I complied.

I entered the shuttle bay to find Ballard, Vorosign, Mkele, and Lynn, as well as Captain Foster. We entered the shuttle, and Captain Foster said, "I intend to violate the Neutral Zone. The USS Karachi disappeared in it 45 years ago, and it has just been sighted. I want you to visit it and find out what happened." There was a quarantine beacon sent out that presumably came from the Karachi when the Yorktown passed it. The beacon would normally repeat for some time.

Last log received from the Karachi, from Captain Joseph Mason:

The Captain, Chief Engineer Casey, Science Officer Wu, and a team of engineers formed an away team to investigate an abandoned alien vessel from an undiscovered alien species. They were never heard from again.

The ship is drifting directly towards Romulus. If possible, we should direct it so that it does not reach Romulus, to prevent the Romulans from getting any technology still on the Karachi. The Karachi was not violating the Neutral Zone when it went missing.

I will be bringing engineering equipment and a very small amount of Dilithium with me, in the hopes of repairing the Karachi enough to take it back to our side of the neutral zone.

The Captain leaves, we stay in the shuttle. After a while, we can sense that the Yorktown warped. The shuttle bay door opens, and we see the Karachi. The Captain tries to tell us something over the comm, but it cuts out. As we exit the shuttle bay, we see a Romulan bird of prey turn on it's cloaking mechanism. At this point I would be lying to say I'm not kind of freaking out a lot. This is so not going to turn out well.

Ballard slams on the gas (metaphorically of course) and we enter the Karachi's shuttle bay. We use the shuttle sensors to scan for lifeforms, and found a weak life form in the sick bay. We were in the shuttle bay - deck 3 - and the sick bay is on deck 5. We notice a Karachi shuttle still in the bay. There should be four. We float over to investigate.

Inside I find that the electronics have been liquified to the molecular level. I tell the others to stay away from the shuttle and from me. I find dead nanobots. I take some and put them in a specimen bag. I can possibly cannibalize the shuttle in order to repair the Karachi. I realize that I just found dead nanobots, and said nanobots are what most likely annihilated this shuttle, and that oh dear lord they're on my suit. They're on my suit. [Expletive Redacted]

Mkele scanned the nanobots, and then the ship, only to find that the nanobots had completely infected the Karachi. After spending way too much time arguing over what to do over the whole basically-the-plague situation, Vorosign looks out the shuttle bay doors and sees a Romulan bird of prey, uncloaked, being fired upon by the Yorktown. Oh, and a Romulan shuttle heading directly towards us.

Mkele, Lynn, and I head up towards the door on the fourth deck while Ballard bunkers down in the shuttle and Vorosign prepares for combat. After issuing a warning in both our language and in Romulan, an uncloaked hand appears holding a phaser and fires several deadly shots at Vorosign. Fortunately, Vorosign dodges this and fires three very well aimed shots at said phaser. For a brief second, we can see the figure that fired at Vorosign. They were covered in armor. Lynn scanned the shuttle and found eight lifeform and identified 3 as Vulcan and 5 as unidentified. The five unidentified blinked out of her tricoder - presumably because the activitated a personal cloaking device.

The girls and I start heading for the sick bay when Ballard blasts the lights of the shuttle in an effort to blind our aggressors. The rest of the ensuing combat, I did not witness. Please refer to Vorosign's log for further info.

We rush to sick bay. It's pitch dark, aside from our flashlights. About half the doors are open in crew quarters. We don't see anyone, as you might expect.

The sick bay door is closed. Lynn and I find and use the suction cups to begin opening it when we notice Vorosign coming our way - and firing in our direction! As we soon realize, however, there was a cloaked enemy in between us and him. Having incapicated that combatant, he did so to another before being shot clean through the chest by a previously invisbible enemy laying prone on the ground. Vorosign shot him several times. Mkele shoots off to grab the second combatant, I think, even though that doesn't really make much sense.

Vorosign is rapidly losing blood, and Mkele is floating off down the hallway while presumably patting down the still invisible but probably dead combatant.

Lynn and I get the med bay doors open, and it depressurizes - a good sign. If we can get Vorosign in the med bay, close the doors, and pressurize it again, he can be saved. Lynn rushes to Vorosign and attempts to stop the bleeding while helping him to sick bay. Once he, Lynn, and Mkele are in, we close the doors and immediately get to work. Lynn patches Vorosign's suit while Mkele grabs an oxygen tank, and I get life support working in the room again. Once Vorosign is stabilized, I head over to the morgue chamber with a human life form inside. Mkele had brought the corpse of one of the invisible combatants in the med bay. She raised it's visor, and this is what was inside:

Mkele scans the lifeform in the morgue for nanites and finds that the nanites are inside him. She also finds that the nanites on my hands have been reactivated - presumably from either the heat or the atmosphere.

Although I am personally embarassed to say it, I started to panic. I had seen what the nanites had done to the shuttle, and if they did that to my suit, or went inside me like they had for the lifeform in the morgue...

Vorosign and I exit the med bay with our weapons drawn in case there are more enemies, he with his weapon and I with the extremely dead weapon Mkele had procurred from the dead alien. Vorosign instructs me to shoot where he shoots. Keaton tell us that the three aliens identified as Vulcans are heading towards us from the same way that Mkele, Lynn, and I did. One hand holding a phaser appears from around the corner and fires a disruptor beam at Vorosign, which he dodges. Voroosign then fires five shots at said hand and phaser, and I begin to lay down surpressing fire. I stop firing for a moment while Vorosign says "Alien combatants. Lay down your weapons, decloak, and come around the corner with your hands above your head.", which Mkele says again in Romulan. Amazingly, they stop actively trying to hurt us.

Mkele takes the life form out of the morgue and makes several choking sounds. She streams us her video stream, and we see this:

There's some odd choking noises from Mkele.

The Yorktown messages us and aks if we're ready to be beamed aboard.While everyone else says yes, Ballard says "No! Shields up, shields up!!". The Yorktown transmission ends, then comes back just a few seconds later. We're beamed aboard into a quarantined transporter room with the unidentified alien and the modified human male.

As the engineer who witnessed firsthand what these nanites can do to a starship, my recommendation is that after the body of the modified human has been scanned enough to identify the nanites, it is completely destroyed along with the USS Karachi. Anything that could be learned from the nanites is not worth the cost of the nanites spreading.

Although it is mere speculation, I would also like to add my personal theory about how the Karachi became infected with the nanites. I think that the captain and his away team went to investigate the alien vessel, which was the original location of the nanites. The away team was then killed and then infected with the nanites. The crew of the Karachi beamed the bodies back on board in order to give them a proper funeral, unaware that they had just infected their ship.

I think that we did an excellent job, considering all that we discovered, even though we did not recover the Karachi. Unfortunately, recovery is absolutely not and option. I would like to nominate Ensign Atilla Vorosign for special commendation, on account of his excellent combat and for keeping his head about him despite having been shot fully through the chest.

or, I Left My Liver In An Undisclosed Location

This mission report is for the audiences of Atilla Vörösign, Captain Evans Foster, Lt. JG Spark Lynn, Lt. JG Kasigo Mkele, Ensign Aura Putar, and Ensign Keaton Ballard *only*.  Anyone else reading this is enjoined to cease immediately, pursurant to section <> of the United Federation of Planets Code of Justice.  If you continue reading and you are neither of the aforementioned entities, be advised that, unless this is an authorized use according to section <> of the Federation Code Of Justice (which, to be fair, given the content of this report, it might well be), you are in violation of Federation law.

I would first like to wrap up what we know of the Bruese mission: the planetary governor turned State's Evidence in order to avoid prosecution, and Pablo (the barman) seems to have been the ringleader of the conspiracy.  Unsurprisingly, the Nogog-Girak mining cartel is dragging out legal proceedings.

On to our most recent mission.

My only previous contact with Captain Foster had been during the receipt of my Red Wound badge.  I was not in any way aware that I was even visible on his radar, so I was extremely surprised that, during my normal shift activity, he approached me and quietly told him to meet me in the Cornwallis shuttlecraft at 2400 hours and to tell no one that he had done so.

Of course, an order from the ship's captain is not to be questioned or ignored, and therefore I was present in the shuttle bay at the appointed time.  I noted that the observation deck, which of course is usually staffed, was completely empty.  I went into the shuttle as ordered.

There I was not entirely surprised to see the other members of my usual team, to wit, Ensign Aura Putar, Lt. JG Spark Lynn, Lt. JG Kagiso Mkele, and Ensign Keaton Ballard, as well as Captain Foster.  He told us, quite straightforwardly, that he intended to violate the Romulan Neutral Zone.

The reason why was rather startling: the USS Karachi, missing for 45 years, had once again been located.  It was in the Neutral Zone.  The Yorktown, passing somewhat nearby (and in the region of space--bordering but not actually within the Neutral Zone--that in fact was the Karachi's last known whereabouts), had heard a presumably proximity-triggered quarantine beacon a few hours ago identifying the ship.  Strangely, the beacon had only given the ship identification, position, and heading a single time, and then was silenced.  Once triggered the beacon should have continuously transmitted until power was exhausted or the beacon or its ship were destroyed.

Two further pieces of information also seemed strange.  The first was that the Karachi was already well within the Neutral Zone and drifting directly towards Romulus itself.  The second was the last communication Starfleet had received from the Karachi.

The final log from the Karachi was that her captain, Joseph Mason, on stardate 2308.19, had received a distress call from an alien vessel.  It was of unknown design, but clearly very old.  It had apparently undergone a significant reactor event, and no signs of life were detected.  Mason, his chief Science Officer Wu, Chief Engineer Casey, and an engineering team were preparing to go aboard and investigate.

No more was ever heard from the Karachi.

The plan was for the Yorktown to warp to the vicinity.  We were to board the ship, ascertain what the situation was while the Yorktown waited, and return with a recommendation for the disposition of the Karachi.  If possible we were of course to divert it so that it would not deliver itself directly to the Romulans.  Captain Foster was certain that its course was not accidental, and therefore that the Romulans had already discovered the hulk and intended to claim it when it entered their space.

We committed ourselves to the mission and agreed on some signals: if the bridge lights flashed SOS the Yorktown was to beam us back.  If the lights did four or more slow pulses, the Yorktown was to destroy the Karachi, whether or not we were still aboard.

We were issued with a rather extravagant amount of equipment: a bit of dilithium sufficient to power up the ship and change its course, a phaser rifle and a tactical tricorder for me, three science tricorders for Ballard, Mkele, and Putar, and a medical tricorder for Lynn.  We planned to fly the shuttlecraft into the (strangely) open bay of the Karachi and make our way into the interior of the ship.  Putar reminded me that I should take anti-nausea medication for zero-gee, for which I thank her immensely.

As soon as we dropped from warp, we saw a Romulan Bird of Prey.  It immediately vanished--the famous Romulan cloaking in action!  We knew time would be short, so Ballard quickly piloted us to the bay.

The Karachi was almost completely cold and airless.  However, a bioscan showed an extremely weak signal, apparently human, in a location consistent with the ship's sickbay.  This immediately became our primary target.

Only one of the Karachi's four shuttles was present.  We investigated it and found that nanites of an unknown design had consumed much of the electronics within.  These nanites appeared inactive.  However, during our investigation, Ensign Putar's suit became contaminated with the nanites.

Since we knew that the Karachi had never filed another report after the away team had left, we were deeply suspicious that the nanites were to blame for the condition of the ship.  We did some basic analysis in order to locate any other contamination on board the ship, and discovered that the nanite infestation had riddled the ship, like veins of mold in expensive and stinky cheese.

Putar became a little perturbed at this point, and rightly so.  We ascertained that her nanites were still inactive.

A discussion ensued: should we take a nanite sample and heat it and see if that reinvigorated it?  However, this discussion was cut short when we peeked out the door and saw that the Bird of Prey had decloaked and was trading fire with the Yorktown, and that a Romulan shuttle was heading towards the shuttle bay.

Mkele, Lynn, and Putar headed to the door by the observation deck of the shuttle bay, while I went to the door on the flight deck.  Ballard barricaded himself in the shuttlecraft.  I killed my helmet light and relied on the infrared from my HUD so as to be a less obvious target.

There were eight life signs aboard, three Vulcans (apparently) and five unknown (see attached scan in mission data, as well as...ah, but I anticipate myself).  As we watched, five of them winked out.  Apparently the Romulans have personal cloaking technology as well.

Just as I noticed a gun apparently floating in the shuttle bay, a disruptor bolt flew at me, and I very luckily managed to dodge it.  The tactical tricorder was able to acquire a lock on the gun, and I fired three shots at the highest setting into where I ascertained its handler to be.  A vacc-suited form briefly became visible, with energy crackling across it, and then vanished again.  I retreated down the corridor. Ballard attempted to blind our assailants with the shuttlecraft's lights.  I dodged another disruptor bolt, shot another combatant, and headed up from Deck 3 to Deck 5 and Sick Bay.  Along the way I noted that the Karachi was in a very bizarre state: about half of the bulkheads I passed were open, and about half closed.  Ordinarily, of course, they would all have been closed, but you would think that if the crew had deliberately exposed the ship's interior to vacuum, they would all have been open.

I emerged onto Deck 5 to see a strange distortion between me and Mkele, Putar, and Lynn.  I shot (causing them no small consternation) and a third opponent was briefly visible.

Alas, then my luck ran out.  A fourth attacker shot me.  I suppose it was fortunate, all things considered, that it was a clean through-and-through and nothing vital in my torso was damaged (after all, the liver regenerates itself rather well, and I have two lungs). I was able to return fire (five shots this time), but I was losing pressure from my suit.

The other three managed to get the sick bay door open, depressurizing it.  Lynn was able to pull me inside sick bay.  I lost consciousness briefly at that point.

When I came to, someone had patched the holes in my suit, Mkele had spliced her atmosphere and a supplementary oxygen bottle into my suit and Lynn had managed to stop the bleeding from my wound.  My suit's life support system was thoroughly destroyed beyond any hope of repair, but the amount of air we could pull from Mkele's suit would be enough to sustain me for maybe half an hour.

I was in pretty bad shape, but I was able to fumble my way across the vacc suit of the inert but still invisible assailant that Mkele had brought into the room, and we opened the suit's faceplate, revealing a hitherto-unknown sort of alien (see attached data readout).  I don't think this was a Romulan: it was seven feet tall and sort of vampiric- looking (pointy teeth, bat ears, skull face).  If I may be permitted a bit of cultural stereotyping here, those of us of Hungarian descent know vampiric-looking when we see it.

We also ascertained that the life signs were coming from a morgue capsule which was, apparently, the only thing on the ship with full power.  A scan revealed that the being inside was human, but that there were also active nanites in there with it.  And then we discovered to our horror that the nanites on Putar's suite were now active, too.

We tried a little experiment: Putar stood across the room and I washed her with the phaser's heat ray.  This would have sterilized any normal bacteria, but it only served to make the nanites much more active. Putar's comms began to break up, and we decided the only hope we had of saving her was for her to go back out into the corridor, with no atmosphere and no heat, and hope that the nanites would become quiescent again.

We knew there was one more cloaked attacker somewhere on board, and three more presumably-hostile lifeforms, so I decided to go out into the hall and try and offer Putar some measure of protection.  We agreed that Lynn and Mkele would have five minutes to try to rescue the morgue's inhabitant, Ballard would pilot the shuttlecraft back to the Yorktown, and the four of us, plus the person in the morgue, plus the dead alien in the invisible spacesuit, would be beamed back.  Ballard communicated this to the Yorktown, along with the specification that Putar was to be beamed out of her suit and that we all were to be beamed into extremely tight quarantine.  It was agreed that we would cluster on either side of the Sick Bay bulkhead so that the transporter could grab us all.

The next few moments were eventful.  Ballard reported that the three remaining lifeforms were leaving the Romulan shuttle.  Mkele and Lynn opened the morgue and there was a horrible choking noise from Mkele's comm.  She explained that the man inside was Captain Joseph Mason, that the nanites had formed some sort of cyborg symbiosis with him, that he was glowing a sickly green, and that he was, somehow, still alive although in some kind of hibernation.

There was some percussion that shook the ship.  Apparently this was Ballard pushing the Romulan shuttle off its mag-brakes and out into space as he left.

Then a gun became visible at the corner of the corridor, where the three Vulcan-appearing lifeforms had gathered.  I dodged, somehow, yet another disruptor bolt, and put five more shots into our last invisible assailant.  Then I opened a broadcast and told the remaining hostiles that I would prefer not to kill them too, and therefore they should drop their weapons and come around the corner with their hands up.  Mkele translated into Vulcan and Romulan for me.  Their reply was that "at our next encounter you will not be so fortunate."  I replied that I fervently hoped we weren't going to have a next encounter.  I think these were likely the Romulans, and the vampiric-looking aliens were some client or slave race of theirs, being employed as shock troops.

Then Yorktown asked if we were ready to beam up.  We answered affirmatively, and they were preparing to beam us abord when Ballard shouted "Belay!  Shields up!  Repeat, shields up!"

This was a little disappointing for us: there we were, in a derelict spacecraft, with my oxygen rapidly running out, Putar's suit being consumed by nanites, three unknowns-presumed-Romulan around the corner making threats, and our rescue had just been delayed.

We heard later that Ballard had had visual of a torpedo being launched from the Bird of Prey and had warned the Yorktown to try to evade that and certainly not to lower her defenses while the missile was in flight. At any rate, our anxious standoff, with Putar and me--at least the nanites had begun to quiet down as her suit cooled and no atmosphere was present--and the Romulans-we-presume around the corner was ended relatively soon as we were beamed aboard a couple of minutes later. They were very long minutes from where Putar and I were sitting.

We recommended that the Karachi be atomized as thoroughly as possible and as soon as possible.  Whatever secrets she may hold are probably of minimal value compared to the nanites that infest her; however, we certainly don't want the Romulan empire figuring out how to tame and harness those.  We have a sample of them we collected in a secure container, and of course we have the unfortunate Captain Mason.

It was, the last I heard, unclear what hideous state between life and death he inhabits, or indeed whether the creature he has become can still be called human, as it is some terrible symbiosis between nanites and Mason's body.  Whatever the case, it is vital that he be kept in the tightest quarantine: the nanites, we must presume, wiped out an entire ship of roughly 100 souls sixty years ago.  They must not be permitted to spread to the Yorktown...and if they do, it is imperative that the last survivors strand the ship somewhere far from any known system rather than risk bringing this infestation back to an inhabited planet. This is, of course, what the crew of the USS Karachi tried to do, I think.  But I do wonder and worry about the three missing shuttles, and we didn't find any other corpses aboard; not that we searched much of the ship.

I do not think we should have brought Mason aboard, but of course that is why I am in Security and Mkele is in Science and Lynn in Medical. Give the poor man a decent blasting-to-atoms deep in the void between the stars and let him rest.  If he should regain consciousness I would be very deeply suspicious of whatever was looking out of his eyes.

We did, however, bring back a few more items that may be of interest (assuming they are not nanite-contaminated).  There's the body of an unknown alien race (probably a Romulan client or slave race), in a space suit with a personal invisibility device hooked up to it, and there is our scanner data that shows quite clearly that Romulans are physiologically extremely similar to Vulcans.

Assuming that we have not unwittingly released a cataclysmic nanite epidemic upon the Federation, I think our mission has been a terrific success.  We either prevented the Romulans from getting their hands on a horrific nanotech weapon they could have deployed against us, or prevented the inadvertent genocide of their species when they failed to control the nanite plague.  With luck one or the other of these explanations can justify our presence within the Neutral Zone, should it ever become an issue.  However, I doubt the Romulans will be eager to explain their presence there either, so I suspect that officially this entire encounter never happened.  Just as well.

It is quite true that I killed five enemy combatants, without warning shots or any attempt at non-lethal disabling tactics.  They fired first, and clearly they were using lethal force, as the hole in my torso demonstrates.  I am not sure what to think about the fact that right now I have a 100% kill rate for a hitherto-unknown species.  Every single one of whatever-that-is that humanity has ever encountered is dead, by my hand.  Whatever they are, they're aggressive and pretty good shots. I am not going to lose a lot of sleep over my actions: it really was us or them.

As for me, I intend to spend the next two weeks flat on my back regrowing my liver and part of my lung.  I think that I have finally achieved my requirements for promotion to Lieutenant, Junior Grade.

My sincerest thanks go to whatever engineer designed the tactical tricorder and its HUD link to the phaser rifle.  I am going to have a bottle of Saurian brandy shipped to whatever engineering facility produces the tactical tricorder.  Without it, we all would have been dead, without ever knowing what killed us.  With it, I was able, repeatedly, to lock onto the uncloaked disruptors of our assailants and then neutralize the threat.

My recommendation for for commendation goes to Lt. Lynn.  This is somewhat self-serving, but it was Lynn who retrieved me after I had been shot and got me into the sick bay.  Between Lynn and Mkele I will live to fight another day.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Kagiso Mkele : Sicon Mission Report : Stardate 6901.12

Near the beginning of shift today, I noticed we had dropped out of a long warp and almost immediately, yellow alert was announced to the entire ship-- we had come out in the Sicon system (in Neutral Zone established by the Organian Demilitarization Treaty.) (Incidentally, has anyone noticed how this treaty has led to a decrease in the use of Klingon villains in entertainment vids?)

The Alert announcement stated that the Federation Outpost on Sicon Prime (~20 Federation staff and ~80 colonist/miners for the system awaiting transport) was found abandoned, with no evidence of attack. The sovereignty of the decade-old outpost was supported by ODT which had lead to increased colonization activity by civilians. This system is thought to be valuable due to rich eridennium deposits (eridennium is used in sensor shielding technology.) This system is also in proximity to the Sigma Barrier, a spatial/chromatic/chonologic anomaly.

Six away teams were dispatched to the surface dome of the subterrainean colony, including our prime team. We were not the first team to arrive, as Lt. Cmd. Sudek was impatiently awaiting our arrival and rushed us on to explore the lower levels of the base before we could sufficiently orient ourselves as to the disposition and recent history of the base. Additionally, our self-defense precautions were disapprovingly observed, although I would expect by now, that we had established that we took appropriate, but not, excessive precautions on away duty. This was not before we viewed a message left by the base's commander, Lt. Cmd. Konata Nantambu. In his message, he states that there are no survivors of colony, that we should leave, not let his death be in vain, and to quarantine the system immediately.

At the quarantine announcement, I note a PTSD-like response in Ensign Putar-- She had been scanning the base for functioning components and got as far as determining that the computers had been down when the first Yorktown personnel arrived. I fear her therapy following the exposure to nanites aboard the Karachi several months ago is not progressing satisfactorily. Unfortunately, Lt. Cmd. Sudek did not provide her time to recover before reissuing his order that we get down the turbolift. Off we go to Level V, where we retrieve a schematic of the base and the rest of the crew fans out to explore what seem to be hastily constructed colonist quarters while I retrieve other logs of Lt. Cmd. Nantambu. Comparison to these logs indicate that the events leading to the disappearance of the inhabitants of the base occurred sometime between 68.12.30.1900 and 68.12.31.2359 (i.e. in the past 2-3 days). Additionally, I noted flat affect and the lack of noise in the background indicating off-vid activity.

My teammates returned and indicated that they found signs of hasty abandonment of the base-- half-eaten meals, untidied living quarters, comments on forums from less than 48 hours ago, many referring to the NYE party. No remains were found on this level. This seems to indicate that infection did precede abandonment of the post, although Putar and Ballard remain (excessively) concerned about this possibility.

Before proceeding to the next level up, Putar checks the base computer and detemines that security vids are present up to 6901.01.0023 but have subsequently had their timestamps changed to prior to 6812.31.2359 (the putative time of Lt. Cmd. Nantambu's final message.) These filehacks were performed with Lt. Cmd. Nantambu's account from the Ops Center.

We proceed up to Level 4 where we we find similar disarry in the barrcks-style colonist quarters. Putar remains at the computer, where she determines via viewing security vids, that a skeleton crew was manning the Ops Center until at least 6812.31.2345 and that there is no record of turbolift use to or from the Ops Center after that time. Additionally, the much-mentioned party is sited on Level 2. While the rest of us scout Level 4, we find little else of note. Given Ballard's and Putar's ongoing concern with infection, I do collect a child's toy and set up an NA-sequencing run on my tricorder to detect the presence of any pathogens.

We proceed to Level 2 and the location of the party. Again, no remains are located. Detritus in the room does not indicate unanticipated beam out and there is no physical evidence of mass exodus through the Jefferies tubes. Terminals are left open to recreational browsing sites. No blood is evident, but I sweep the area for pathogen sequences and to inventory personnel present.

While the rest of us examine this level, Putar remains at the computer and determines there are deleted files on the system and that these all date between 6812.31.2359 and 6901.01.0023. She also finds video of the turbolift open to this level with a woman unconscious on floor at 6901.01.0011. It is Carolyn McCarthy (enlisted) Life Support Systems Specialist, off-duty at the time. She does not show signs of violence or asphyxiation.

We proceed to Level 1, where we note activation of the lights from sleep-cycle and staleness of the air. We proceed to the Med Bay where we detect elevated O₂ levels. Ballard and I scan the area for unexpected cellular life and Putar searches the Med Bay records, finding only a few cases of EtOH poisoning.

We do note an airlock to the surface, of which the interior controls to the outer lock are blackened and melted, although no currents indicating leakage are present at either door. We also detect dormant biosigns outside.

As the outer lock controls are damaged, Putar and I remain inside to operate the lock while Ballard and Vörösign don rebreathers and proceed outside. They find the remains of Lt. JG Kristen Greene, Med Officer and Lt. JG John Graves, Science Officer in intact evac suits. Probable cause of death-asphyxiation when they were unable to operate the outer lock from the surface. We comm in the find and are beamed up to the Yorktown.

Later that shift, Ballard informs us that our prime team is to deploy to Sicon III, an M-class planet. Other teams are assigned to other bodies in the system. We approach the planet in the shuttlecraft. On our approach, Ens. Putar detects a metallic object in the atmosphere. Ballard preconfigures the shuttle for warp back to the Yorktown and pilots us towards the object. It has landed on the surface near multiple caves, upon which it disappears from scanners. Two of the caves have low O₂ and high CO₂ levels. The lower of these is near an agricultural site. Ballard lands us 3km away from the upper cave, where the other ship landed.

We hike to the upper cave, where we detect motion sensors. Vörösign sacrifices his tricorder to set up a diversion to mask our approach. Inside the cave, there is a 5-6 person Klingon shuttle. Two Klingons fire at the cave roof above us, but we charge them so that they must collapse the roof on themselves in order to injure us.

Two more Klingons, two humans, and what appears to be a red-haired, tall, human female arrive and the standoff ends. I suspect she is Organian, as she asks us if we are humans. She is the obvious leader of this hostile(?) group. She takes us to a building within the cave and then introduces us to a brunette "human" woman named Dian'Ara. On the way, we pass numerous people, none of whom I can identify as Sicon Prime Colony members. Inside the building are several servants, one of whom is in disguise and appears to actually be one of the leaders of the group.

Vörösign queries her knowledge of the Sicon Prime inhabitants and she informs us that we are in Danurian (?) space. She then commands we turn over our phasers, tricorders, and communicators. We refuse and prepare to fight, but the disguised servant blasts us with some kind of psychic stun-- we wake up in a cave, without our equipment, except for the phaser I which Vörösign had hidden somewhere on his person. I'm not speculating where.

We find the Sicon Prime staff (including the Lt. Cmd.) and colonists inside the cave. We decide to melt the gate on the chamber entrance and run for our shuttle, where we will be able to hail the Yorktown to evacuate everyone and get the phaser rifles aboard to return to the Klingon shuttle and collapse the cave on its exit route. Ens. Putar determines the best demolition site and Vörösign sets the phaser to overload.

We exit the chamber, expecting to enter the chamber containing the Klingon shuttle, but instead find ourselves in a larger chamber with an old DY-100 class ship, well picked over. Putar and I lead the crowd out to the surface through a small opening, which Vörösign collapses behind us. We run to our landing site, but our shuttle is gone!

Dian'Ara and her supporters approach and flank us. She accuses that we are their enemies but they are not ours. (Explain that!) She claims that "Danurians" used to be humans, but have evolved beyond that. She claims that the kidnapped settlers were willing to go with them and declare their allegiance to the "Danurians" and that we would do well to do the same. We explain to her the right of individual self-determination and also that the Yorktown will expect an update from us and would come looking for us if we did not report in shortly. She flinches at the mention of the Federation, but is unwilling to return our comms. We remain in a defensive position for several hours until the Yorktown rescues us and the Sicon Prime staff when we do not report on time.

We were subsequently informed that diplomatic negotiations have been opened with the Danurians and that a few of the colonists elected to stay on Sicon III. It seems likely that they will agree to a treaty and will be better protected than if they had remained under the sway of the Klingon Empire.

Ens. Putar should be commended for her personally difficult work on this mission, and also be prioritized to receive more therapy; however, my MVP vote goes to Ens. Ballard, for his disregard of personal safety multiple times today, instrumental performance of piloting, leadership, and diplomatic skills.

Ensign Aura Putar : Sicon Mission Report : Stardate 6901.02

We dropped out of warp and, almost immediately, a yellow alert was put into effect. We had arrived at the outpost at Sicon Prime, only to find it completely abandoned with no evidence of an attack.

Vörösign was called to a security meeting. Well, not him specifically, but all security officers of a certain rank, Vörösign included. Anyways, according to Atilla, the 100 inhabitants of Sicon Prime are missing, and due to high eridennium levels scanning is worthless. He will be leading a team (the standard group of Vörösign, Ballard, Mkele, and myself) to investigate what happened to the people of Sicon Prime. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a bit concerned about being assigned to investigate another abandoned area after the incidents on the Karachi. That mission was... really not fun. Given our group's history, we're all wearing both the ballistic body arm and laser-proof body armor jackets. No reason to take a chance we don't have to.

After assembling our gear and gathering relevant knowledge, we beamed down. After a brief chat with Security Officer Sudek, we learned that we were to investigate the lower levels. I talked with an engineering officer, who said that systems had been down when we arrived (but were now up). He seemed amused by my jacket, but at this point I prefer a smirk over any physical trauma. We saw a message play on the large screen in the dome, from Lieutenant Commander Konata Nantambu. This is Lt. Cmdr. Konata Nantambu. There are no survivors on the Glenconnor colony, If you're seeing this transmission, do not let my death be in vain. Leave this accursed place and quarantine this system immediately. At this point, I can't help but to recall our time on the Karachi. I sighed heavily and tried to forget the sensation of nanites swarming my vacc suit.

We take the turbo lift to the lower levels, our assigned investigation area. Around us are some hastily assembled living quarters for the miners. While Mkele accessed the terminal, Vörösign found a half-eaten meal, which I determined to be left for about two days. After investigating the lowest floor, we didn't find anything more of note. Mkele determined that the LC was stressed at the time of the last transmission (who'd have guessed?). He seemed like he was reading a script / not himself. It shut off exactly when the New Year happened, when in actuality things had started shutting off 23 minutes into the New Year, but were altered so that it appeared that everything ended at the stroke of midnight. These alterations were all made at the operation center with Nantambu's security code. The surveillance footage of the operation center shows the crew up there until midnight, when it shuts off. The crew was complaining about being unable to attend the New Year's party.

We head up a floor and investigate briefly. Nothing looks unusual, aside from a small child's teddy bear, which appears to be left behind. Mkele is thrilled, Vörösign scans for explosives. Mkele is weirdly thrilled. She seems to have an incredibly detailed knowledge of the teddy bear issued. Vörösign thinks it might be contaminated. Mkele takes it in an evidence bag. We head up a floor. It seems much the same.

On the floor of the New Year's party, there are a lot of spilled drink and left party remnants (party hats, napkins, plates, etc). After looking through the deleted files of a computer, I managed to recover a turbo lift video of a woman in a party hat, in good health, lying down outside the turbo lift on the floor we're at. She looks completely normal, and from what we can tell, alive. Time stamp : 12:11 am on January 1st. I found a blonde hair on the screen, and with Mkele's tricorder we identified her as one of the Federation officers. Enlisted Officer Carolyn McCarthy, worked on life support systems.

Up a level, to the med lab. I'm careful not to touch anything. As soon as we entered, the lights came on. When we get to the lab, the lab smells oxygen rich, above normal levels, with air tight doors. The med bay is abandoned, like the rest of the complex. No abnormal medical logs. Can't these people at least document their mysterious disappearance? I guess disappearing mysteriously is a bit inconvenient and without much opportunity to do anything but disappear mysteriously. Nothing unusual regarding the airlock door. Mkele notices that the controls on the inside of the airlock have been scorched. They are blackened and melted.

Vörösign and Ballard bravely decide to go out onto the planet's surface, after we do a scan and find that there are two (what appear to be) humanoid corpses outside the outer airlock door. In the transition room, they find that the door has been blockaded so that it can't be opened planet side. They remove the obstruction. They find two humans in full evac suits - dead. Completely out of oxygen, cause of death appears suffocation. Ballard does a bio scan, and they appear to be Kristin Greene and John Graves, both Federation science officers. They were both on duty in the lab at midnight. Poor sods. Suffocation is, in my opinion, one of the worst ways to go.

The higher-ups are impressed with our finding of the bodies, and having finished the investigation of Sicon Prime, we are beamed back to the Yorktown. We go back to our normal stations, and all is well. For now. Hours later, Keaton Ballard is ordered to report to the briefing room. He was asked to assemble a team to investigate Sicon III in order to investigate the possibility of the survivors being on the planet. Away teams will also be deployed to Sicon II. We all opted to continue wearing our slightly unfashionable armor jackets (what with our track record regarding away teams). The Yorktown will be away investigating the Sigma Barrier. We report to the shuttle bay. Same get up as before, plus Ballard's disguise kit, Vörösign brings various weapons I can't remember, I bring my engineering repair kit. We take off. I scan and find Sicon III to be remarkably Earth-like. Odd that the base is on Sicon Prime and not Sicon III. After not even an hour, I get a brief detection of a large, artificial, metallic energy source that can't possibly be natural. Ballard deftly pilots us towards this anomaly, and I get another brief glimpse of the blip and mark the spot. Ballard takes us in low, close to the planet. After conducting another sensor sweep where I had found the blip, the scan tells us that it's in one of the higher elevation areas, and attempts to penetrate the surface with our scans reveal results similar to there being high levels of eridennium. We detect cave openings, and the caves have elevated carbon dioxide levels. Therefore, they must have some kind of life inside, most likely the hundred or so missing colonists. One cave is underneath where the probably-a-shuttle is, and near the other cave entrance is cultivated land. It appears to be native fauna. It's what, say, a hundred people need to survive. Based on our analysis, no one other than these people are on Sicon III. It is also clear that this settlement has been here significantly longer than two days.

After setting up the shuttlecraft to transmit a message to the nearest Federation vessel / base unless we tell it not to in three hours, [MESSAGE EMBEDDED], we start to stealthily head towards the cave underneath the probably-a-shuttle. Vörösign, ever a careful one, finds no landmines on our way there. We approach the mouth of the cave, and notice that our tricorders only have, like, fifteen minutes of battery left. Who forgot to plug in those charging cords? Seriously? This is one of the worst possible places for a tricorder to die. Vörösign does our signal for "those things over there that look like rocks near the mouth of the cave actually sense motion and heat so don't go near them", which is whispering this phrase quietly enough for only our team to hear. Vörösign then tells us that he's fooled the rock-sensors with his tricorder, and as long as we walk where he says we can they won't sense us.

There is a shuttle inside the cave of non-Federation origin. Ballard recognizes that there is Klingon writing on the side. Well, I'd be lying if I said I was surprised. "Oh, there are Klingons near the Neutral Zone where they aren't supposed to be? Who’d have thought?” I throw out the idea of some sort of sabotage against the Klingon shuttle, which Ballard reacts quite negatively to. We decide to head deeper into the cave in order to perhaps find one of the colonists in an effort to figure out what is going on. We walk into the cave a bit. Suddenly, two disruptor beams shoot the cave walls near us. The walls shake dramatically, and rocks fall, falling a bit on Ballard and Vörösign, but they were protected by their armor. So much for the stealthy, don't-explode-the-cave-on-top-of-the-Klingon-shuttle approach. They rush the Klingons, and Mkele and I follow. Two Klingons are now angrily glaring at us, as they can’t actually hurt us since we’re humans (what with the whole Organian Treaty rules). After Keaton somewhat snarkily asks them to take us to their leader, the standoff of neither-of-us-can-hurt-each-other begins. After another minute or so, two more Klingons appear, one of which is female, causing Ballard to... perk up dramatically. In addition, a rather striking human-appearing woman appears with two other human-appearing males. She talks with the Klingons a moment, then comes over to us and speaks in English. She asks if we're human, we respond in the positive, then tells us to come with them. We follow, with the three human-appearing ones in front and two Klingons behind us. Ballard scans them and finds them to be not just human-appearing, but human-being as well. Eventually, the passage gets more obviously hewn, and then we find an obvious community. There's some nice feng-shui / flow going on, but it does look a tad haphazard, and it can house about one hundred people. We're led further in, and Keaton scans and finds that these people are not from Sicon Prime. The striking, Viking-looking woman seems to have the respect of the people living here. We're led into a central room, which another rather striking woman is in that looks like this:

"We've been expecting you," says the other tall woman. "This may take a while." she gestures at a table and sits down.

I ask for her name politely, and she says her name is Dian'ara.

I ask what she means by "been expecting you", and she says "Humans in general." "Do you know what happened to the miners of Sicon Prime?" asks Vörösign. "You are in Danurian space," answers Dian'ara. We've never heard of the Danurians. I ask if she's ever seen the Lieutenant Commander from Sicon Prime before, showing her a picture. She looked at it, declined to comment, and handed it back.

"As sovereign leader of this system, I will allow you to visit your comrades." says Dian'ara. They ask for all our technology, we refuse, and suddenly we have a splitting pain in our heads. We wake up in a section of the cave, surrounded by the lost miners. The Lieutenant Commander (LC) shakes us awake, and tells us that they had all woken up here. He says we were found at the gate, and I look over and see a large gate blocking the way out of the cave. Vörösign has his holdout phaser, fortunately.

Vörösign melts the lock, and we make a break for it. Mkele and I lead the miners to the cave entrance. We run and run and run until we find a large cave and find a picked-apart DY-100 Class Interplanetary ship. There is an opening - not large - but we can get out. We escape through the tunnel, and Vörösign collapses the tunnel behind us.

Mkele and I lead them back to where our shuttle should be, but it's not there. This mission just went from "bad" to "really bad".

Dian'Ara shows up, and Vörösign runs into cover. There are other people behind her in the forest.

She walks up to us and says "We are not your enemies. You are our enemies." I ask her to explain. "We were once human as you were. We left our planet of our own free will. Now we are here, and we would prefer that our claim on this world and this system be honored." After a short heart-to-heart about how they're much more likely to be messed-with if they keep a hundred miners and a flock of Starfleet officers captive, they agree to let us return as long as whoever wants to stay and become a Danurian can do so. We agree. After a few hours, the Yorktown came to pick us up. We beamed aboard, and the rest of whatever happened on Sicon III didn't involve me.

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Sicon Mission Report : Stardate 6901.02

SETTING THE STAGE

On Stardate 6901.02, the Yorktown unexpectedly dropped out of warp, in a condition of Yellow Alert. All security lieutenants were ordered to report to Cmd. Sudek. We were told that there had been a Federation outpost on Sicon Prime, and that about 100 colonists--miners--had been there awaiting transport to promising mineral deposits, when the colony had been suddenly abandoned.

Scans were not helpful as the majority of the facility was belowground, and the valuable mineral for which the miners were prospecting was eridennium, which blocks scans. So it was our job to go down to the planet and find out what happened.

We were told that the environmental dome was intact; Sicon Prime has a very thin atmosphere. The world is tide-locked, and the outpost was in the twilight band. The hot side is completely uninhabitable, and so is the cold side; the twilight band is fatal to unprotected humans in a matter of minutes, but with a rebreather, this stretches to a few days and the cause of death is dehydration. With a rebreather and adequate water supplies, a person could survive in the twilight zone indefinitely.

The Sicon system is within the Organian Treaty area, so direct human-Klingon violence is forbidden. The Klingons had realized that laying mines, or otherwise causing indirect harm, was not considered a violation.

The missing colonists are said to be a mix of human and Prellarian. Each of the Lieutenants was told to assemble a team to search for the missing colonists and Starfleet officers.

I, of course, chose our usual crew of Lt. Mkele, Ensign Putar, and Ensign Ballard. We requisitioned additonal body armor, and we were issued Type II phasers, and I had a Type III rifle as well as my usual holdout phaser I. We got some strange looks showing up heavily armored, but strange looks hurt much less than stone spears through the right brachial artery.

SEARCHING THE OUTPOST

We beamed down and were shown a looped security recording: Lt. Commander Konata Natambu said, "There are no survivors. This place is accursed. Leave now and quarantine the system." He had a weirdly flat affect while stating this, rather as if he were reading a script (according to Lt. Mkele; I noticed no such thing). The timestamp was just before midnight on New Year's Eve. This was obviously reminiscent of prior plague situations (see my report on the Karachi) and therefore we became quite cautious. Too cautious, perhaps, for Lt. Cmdr. Sudek, who had assigned us to searchthe lower levels, and who became impatient with our strategizing.

Floor -5: we took the turbolift all the way down and began searching at the bottom of the outpost. The area was surprisingly devoid of landmines, but we found a half-eaten and slowly rotting meal, from about two days prior, as well as all the personal effects, diaries, et cetera from the colonists. There were no signs of forced evacuation; simply that everything had been left in its usual place, but all the people were missing. Putar, working on a hunch, examined the logs more closely and found that everything was actually shut down at about 23 minutes past midnight, but the timestamps had been tampered to make them appear as if they happened prior to midnight. That had been done from the security console, with Natambu's security code. Very strange. We climbed a Jeffries tube to the floor above.

Floor -4: Much the same as the previous floor. Lt. Mkele found a teddy bear; I reminded her to use an evidence bag and not to touch it directly, lest it be contaminated with the plague agent.

Floor -3: The same story. Nothing new was discovered.

Floor -2: This was where the party had been. It was full of party trash--dropped plastic cups, paper noisemakers, et al. Examination of the toilets revealed none of the mess one would expect if 100 people had suddenly been taken ill. Ballard stated that he believed the Klingons had abducted everyone, although how they could have done that without being able to employ force was a mystery. Putar, however, found a deleted file, a security log from the turbolift: someone in a party hat laying on the ground near the turbolit doors. She was a normal color amd had no evident signs of trauma, so we hypothesized she was unconscious rather than dead. A brief search revealed her to by Carolyn McCarthy, an enlisted officer (so, Federation rather than a colonist), a life support tech.

Floor -1: This was the command deck. We went immediately to the medical bay. Lt. Mkele determined that the bay was slightly too oxygen-rich--not enough to be toxic, but an elevated level. The inner airlock doors to an external exit were closed, but through the viewport we could see that there were scorch marks on the airlock controls, and our scanners determined that there were objects consistent with human corpses outside the outer airlock. After a brief debate--I argued that we should not open the lock until acquiring biohazard suits--Ballard convinced me to cycle the lock and see what was going on. Inside the airlock, not only had the controls been destroyed, but the manual override had been jammed so that the lock could not be opened from the outside. Fortunately, from the inside, it was fairly easy to remove the jam and cycle the lock. The two corpses outside turned out to be two more Federation officers, who had been on duty at midnight on New Year's Eve: John Graves, a doctor, and Kristen Greene, a scientist. Their suits were pressurized but the oxygen had all been used up. Our hypothesis therefore was that they had suffocated when they could not reenter the station after the abduction happened at about 12:23 AM.

That was all we found on our search of the Sicon Prime outpost. Our working theory was that all present had been somehow knocked unconscious and abducted, that Commander Natambu had been somehow coerced into delivering his speech, and that there was a good chance our missing colonists were still alive. It was disturbing that the two dead people we'd found, and the one unconscious one on the tape, were all Federation officers rather than civilians. This perhaps supported Ballard's theory about the Klingons, who would be expected to have a particular dislike for Federation personnel.

SICON III

It was decided that we should search the other worlds in the system as well. Sicon II is a water world, but Sicon III is extremely earth-like. We were given a shuttlecraft; the Yorktown was going to be out of contact for some time. We outfitted ourselves similarly; I once again insisted on a holdout Phaser I in my boot.

We immediately wondered why the outpost had been on Sicon Prime, a barely-inhabitable world, when Sicon III looked like a veritable paradise. As we approached, Ensign Putar noted a metallic, high-energy source in orbit, which then vanished over the limb of the planet. A spaceship! We corrected course to follow it, and found it on the surface, in a mountainous region.

Scans failed to penetrate the surface, indicating high levels of eredinnium here as well. In the general area of the ship we noticed two cave openings with elevated levels of CO₂. The lower one was near an area of cultivated land, which had evidently been farmed for a while. It appeared to be planted entirely in native species, and was large enough to support a hundred or more people. This was the only evidence of habitation we had seen on the entire planet. The mystery ship seemed to be near the upper cave.

We landed a few kilometers away and made our way to the upper cave, but not without first setting up a beacon and "if you get this message, we are probably in trouble" recording on a three-hour dead-man switch. I *still* detected no landmines, but did find motion sensors near the cave mouth. I set up my tricorder to spoof the sensors and abandoned it there so we could sneak in. Inside we found, to the surprise of none of us, a Klingon shuttlecraft big enough for five or six people. We had a brief debate about whether to collapse the cave roof on top of it, but decided that discretion was preferable, and so we proceeded farther inside.

Almost immediately, disruptor beams, with which I have become wearily familiar, targeted the rock above us, blasting us with shrapnel. Because we had suspected that some nefarious Klingon method of indirect attack was likely, we were all wearing our terribly-unfashionable layers of armored protection, and were not harmed by this. We ran forward to find two angry Klingons, who couldn't do anything to us without dropping the cave ceiling on themselves too. I cheerly invited them to "Eat a bowl of Q'agh," and in short order two more Klingons, two humans, and a redheaded human woman (big-boned; looked kind of like a Viking) showed up. They led us to a big cavern, rather nicely laid out; clearly a functional community. We saw only humans there, all wearing simple robes. I would estimate there were about 100 of them. No Prellarians, none of the human colonists, and none of the missing Federation staff were present.

The woman who was leading us brought us to an even taller (and extremely attractive) woman, who introduced herself as Dian'Ara. There was a very good looking male human there as well, and we got the feeling that it was her job to talk to us, and his to observe our reactions. She seemed to react negatively to Starfleet and the Federation, and neutrally to mentions of Klingons, which was sort of strange to us. She said that her people were Danurians, of whom I had never heard.

She said she'd been expecting us, and when asked whether she meant us in particular or humans or Federation citizens in general, she said that she thought we didn't know why we were there.

So I told her why we were there: we were looking for missing Federation officers and colonists, and that we had no beef with her or her community, as long as our people were not being held against their will. She merely smiled in response.

Then she demanded the surrender of all our high-tech gear: tricorders, weapons, and communicators. We refused. Immediately we were siezed by splitting headaches and passed out.

When we came too we were in a different cave, behind a locked metal gate. Commander Natambu was there! Behind him were about 100 people, clearly our missing persons. I ascertained that they were being held against their will, and since they were, we resolved to help them all escape.

By great good fortune, our captors had not discovered my holdout phaser, so it was fairly trivial to melt the lock on the gate, kick it open, and make a run for it. Of course, we had been unconscious when brought to the cave (and, in retrospect, we might have spent a bit more time finding out just how much about the cavern layout the captives knew, or how they had gotten there, but we wanted to get everyone out before the Yorktown, alerted by our three-hour broadcast, returned). Putar and Mkele ran ahead, then the colonists, and then Ballard and I brought up the rear. Our thundering herd ran out, and then to the right, and then straight, and missed the cave with the Klingon shuttle and entered another larger cave.

In that cave was a picked-apart 1990s-era DY-100-class interplanetary ship. It was decidedly sublight and never intended for interstellar travel. Presumably it was the initial vessel that had conveyed the Danurians here...but how?

Anyhow, with no time to contemplate these mysteries, we found a passage out of the cave, which I collapsed behind us with a few shots from my phaser's disintegrate setting. We all ran back to the clearing where we'd left our shuttle, intending to muster there and wait for the Yorktown to evacuate us.

Our ship was gone.

Dian'Ara approached. I sneaked off and took up a position behind a tree, but even if I had the drop on her, it was soon evident that her people were fanning out through the woods surrounding us.

She said: "You are our enemies. We are not yours." She wanted her people to be left alone and in secret. Ballard extemporized a very good speech pointing out that we would be missed, and that even if they killed us, the Yorktown would be back in force. However, he repeated, we had no problem with her community--he said that we, and by extension the Federation--thought that the Federation would do much more to respect her privacy and right to self-determination than the Klingon Empire, and further that any colonists who chose to stay and mine and trade as Danurians would be free to do so.

When she returned communicators to our team, I stepped out of hiding as well.

She would not answer our questions of where the Danurians had come from, although she did say that merely sincerely affirming one was a Danuranian was sufficient to become one, whether one was human or Prellarian or Klingon (despite the fact that all her people appeared to be human). Some of the colonists chose to stay, and it's easy to see why; the planet is practically a paradise, and from what we saw, her people lived pretty well.

Eventually the Yorktown arrived, and those who wished to leave Sicon III were beamed aboard.

IN CONCLUSION

The Federation has begun diplomatic negotiations with the Danurians. I presume that someone with a better grasp of history and ready access to Federation databases knows which DY-100 class ship went missing, under what circumstances, and therefore who these people's forbears were. I'm curious about that myself, but I think our mission was better served rescuing the missing people than in doing anthropological/archaeological research. I suspect the answer to that question might also answer the question of why the Federation outpost was on Sicon Prime rather than Sicon III, which is obviously a much-more-easily settled world.

I am quite pleased with the outcome of this mission. Even if Dian'Ara does not trust the Federation, I am quite confident that she and her settlement will prosper better as an independent nation sheltered under the wing of the UFP than it would have as a remote mining outpost of the Klingon Empire. Clearly they have resources we are not yet fully aware of: they obviously possess some sort of psychic mindblast power to be able to instantly cripple our entire team, and I suspect their power is greater than that. I believe they took over Natambu's mind to shut down the outpost and that they knocked everyone else unconscious at the New Year's party.

Once again my commendations to the manufacturers of our standard-issue armor. Not that I don't think our medical staff is wonderful, but I'd rather see them in social circumstances, and sick bay not at all.

It was refreshing to once again not be shot at much, and it was rather nice being, honestly, an ineffectual mission leader. By that I mean: our away team was under my command, but my own skills, which are of course security-related, were in almost no demand during our mission. I would single out Ensign Ballard for special commendation: his oratorical skills stood us in good stead with the Danurians, and if we're going to be put into impromptu diplomatic situations, I can think of no one I would rather have represent us than Ballard.

Lt. J. G. Kagiso Mkele : Gamma Naturalis II Mission Report : Stardate 6905.23

<< access permissions for myself and Cpt. Evans Foster and security classification Top Secret >>

Alpha shift-- The Yorktown heaved, and Red Alert sounded, followed by the announcement for damage control teams to forward saucer section. Most unusual given that we were in the Neutral Zone in the vicinity of the hulk of the USS Karachi where we brought back the preserved remains of Cpt. Mason. Putar goes fore and comms back that we hit a Klingon disruptor mine. Yorktown Strike Team (I like our snazzy new team name) volunteer to a man to pilot a craft ahead of the Yorktown to act as mine detector. Our own Yorktown Strike Team member Ballard received his ships piloting certification in the past pay period (yay, Ballard!) and was ready to do a little showboating. Less than an hour into our assignment, Vorosign detects another mine, definitely with Romulan cloaking tech on it. I'd really like to know what the arrangement between the two empires was, because it seems like there's an awful lot of tech transfer that has happened in the past few years. Now that we know what we're looking for, other crews are dispatched on a similar mission.

We're called back in, apparently by the Captain, himself, as we are quickly directed to a briefing room, where we find out:

There is a Federation distress call coming from Gamma Naturalis II, a class M planet with ring system (not previously documented rings--odd, neh?) and an energy field surrounding. We are to go to surface and find the source, as there should be NO Federation presence here, and the energy field is preventing surface scans. Given that the nearest known Federation presence was the ill-fated USS Karachi decades ago, we request EV suits for protection from possible nanites. There's some other dithering about miltary equipment, but I wasn't really paying attention to that. Ballard pilots the shuttlecraft, but when we cross the energy field in the upper atmosphere, the shuttle lost power and sensors. It was only thanks to Ballard's superior piloting skills that we land, with no injuries. An equipment check reveals only 1 EV suit working, all tricorders not working, no communicators-- the energy field disrupted them. Putar rigs an EV suit battery to her engineering tricorder while Ballard makes a Faraday cage "bag" to stow the tricorder and 2 phasers. We write a message on the wall of the shuttle in green marker summarizing the situation, rig the EV suits for head/sun protection, and head out with vapor canisters for water, and 2 dead vac suits to build shelters. Of course, Vorosign overdresses in an excess of anticipation of combat and gets heat exhaustion after the first period of trekking (days are 48 Terran hours). Towards the end of the light period, we hear Klingon voices approaching... 4-6 of them attack us from cover with crossbows. We shelter near some rocks and I negotiate a deescalation, althoug they insist we surrender. Putar, Ballard, and I "surrender" and provide noise, distraction, and subterfuge to convince them that our fourth party member has been killed. Only some believe us, an argument erupts, and Vorosign moves in to attack. Ballard and I try to disarm Klingons near us, but Vorosign was bloodier minded, and as for Putar, let us just say she wields a screwdriver in multiple modes. We tie up the two we captured and leave them in the shade of a rock. Thirty minutes later, we see a large, domed city. We also find a USS Karachi life pod and a Federation shuttle craft that has been stripped of parts (but also seems nanite-free). We head towards the city and find a small graveyard with monuments labelled for 73 Star Fleet Officers (see attached roll), the majority within a few months of the disappearance of the Karachi, and a few others as recently as 17 years ago. While assembling the catalog of names a door in the dome opens, and an old man (identified as Dr. Ian Deacon, a biologist) says, "Starfleet! I had given up hope..." He is the apparent source of the distress signal. He also apparently had knowledge of our presence, as his granddaughter, Angela, and "James" went to find us a few days ago and haven't returned. Not wanting those two to encounter our Klingon attackers, we bring them back to the city-- and a most odd city it is. It is at least 100K years old, with a bland, but unjointed red sandstone architecture, built on a non-human scale. I could have explored the place for days! However, we took some time to get information from Dr. Deacon about the Karachi's demise, so that we could plan to safely reesatblish contact with the Yorktown. In brief, Deacon claimed: They found the city when they come here. There were growing power outages on the Karachi Cpt. Mason ordered Order 13 and 92 crew left, leaving 1 craft for their Captain Most of the crew died within a few weeks Deacon "could not remember" of what Several survived, they moved into the City, life went on, children were born-- however, we saw not a single other person There is a "purple crystal" which Deacon is obsessed with-- more so than his granddaughter.

We head out in a search party for the missing two survivors, and again have advance notice of a Klingon standing guard near a cave. We disarm the sentry by ganging up on him. We hear a woman speaking commandingly inside the cave and fan out above the entrance to ambush. I throw a large rock to attact attention. A large Klingon male comes out, and we fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight... and let me point out that my judo training is starting to pay off, and I should continue to work on it. After disarming and unarmoring him, I go in cave to negotiate with Klingon woman who is hold a guy hostage and also has two other prisoners. I talk her into going outside and I ungag her leader in exchange for her ungagging the "kid hostage" and we find out his name-- Sean, and that he stole the purple crystal, when his friend Vince was killed by James, after both were forced to take some kind of nutritional supplements and Dr. Deacon started talking about the "next phase of the experiment". The Klingon says the human colony shot down her ship, the Vree-Lak, a D7 Cruiser(!) and Sean agrees that the doctor did this.

The horrible reasons will be clear in a few paragraphs, but my memory of the following events is not too clear. The Klingons agree to hide, with Sean, and Ballard stumbles into the cave pretending to be the lone survivor of the party. He hightails back to the city with Angela. The rest of the strike team and 2 of the Klingons (faking being prisoners) head back to the city a little later, leaving Sean and 1 Klingon to guard James. Sean also warns us that the Doctor will try to warp our minds to get the crystal back (yet we need the crystal in the city to bring down the energy field and reestablish comms with the Yorktown.) I put a posthypnotic suggestion on Vorosign that the Faraday "bag" contains raisins, and NOT the gem/phasers/tricorder that it actually contains, plus I give him a little freedom from his judgemental superego. (Anything for team solidarity, right V?)

When we return to the city, Deacon greets us wearing a heavy backpack with guts and parts dripping out of it. He also is obsessing over the (hidden) Faraday cage and tries to take it from Vorosign, so I use the agreed signal to drop the posthypnotic suggestion and Vorosign and Ballard spring into action to disarm the Doctor. He is ranting, but agrees to lead us to the lab (hereafter LoH, or Lab of Horrors.) In the LoH, we find our prior Klingon captives mauled, face down, and our Klingon "prisoners" have to be stunned because they freak out. I find that other disappeared persons from the survivor group and in various stages of... uh... diassembly and immediately set up psych quarantine procedures to prevent the exposure of my crew. But think I may need some therapy for this, myself. The... remains... account for 4 of the 5 "disappeared" survivors whom Sean had mentioned, as well as his friend Vincent. I suspect genotyping of the contents of the backpack will reveal that they are Jeanne Deacon, the Doctor's intimate. How he could do *that*, I do not want to know... The others put the crystal into its mount and... all systems came back up after interminable minutes of guarding the Bad Stuff. Putar figured out how to bring down the shield and contact the Yorktown.

On a therapeutic note, it is interesting to see how political events trickle into popular culture-- Klingons are no longer the "bad guys" in shows, but everyone is now planning to go off prospecting on the frontier with minimal equipment or support, now that it's "safe". It's the Romulans who are villains now... and Orions are hip counter-culture heros, with their Prellarian bling flashing. Meanwhile, imported drugs such as Redbloom are also rising in popularity (perhaps due to those very pirates), with some intriguing descriptions of their effects. How does one reconcile that with stoicism?? One also notes continuing public plants of heavy handed anti-augment propaganda-- guess our guys are behind that, in case of message bleed from Survias, now that Klingons aren't so "evil".

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Gamma Naturalis II Mission Report : Stardate 6905.23

TO BE VIEWED BY CAPT. FOSTER AND YORKTOWN STRIKE TEAM ONLY

It was, all things considered, a fairly normal day out on the edge of the Neutral Zone. Romulans were the new popular boogeymen in mass entertainment; Prellarian gems were popular; Orion pirates were once again, sickeningly, romanticized. Nothing about augments.

"Settling the frontier" was hip; perhaps some sort of propaganda exercise to make sure that there were Federation worlds near the Klingon border and thus limit their expansion. So was austere living. And so too was a new hot drug, marijuana-like in its effects, Kirian Redbloom.

Suddenly: RED ALERT! My ribs got bruised in the excitement; a hole had appeared in the saucer. Eventually we determined that we ran over a Klingon Disruptor Mine--what's one of *those* doing way out here? Only one other ship we knew of had been out this far--the Karachi (cue ominous chords).

The Yorktown Strike Team went out scouting in a shuttle, with Ensign Putar at the sensors. We soon discovered a mine, hidden in a Romulan cloaking device. Why are there cloaked mines? What were they hiding?

We were near the Gamma Naturalis system, a red dwarf with a number of rockball planets and 7N2, which was an M-Class planet...surrounded by a purple energy field, and a clearly new, artificial ring!

Captain Foster summoned the Strike Team: a Federation distress signal had been heard from the planet, but the energy halo prevented a scan. Thus we had to go down there and see what's what. I was not allowed to take a phaser rifle or suit with HUD, much to my disgruntlement (although, in the event, it wouldn't have helped). We spent entirely too much time arguing over the optimal tricorder loadout.

As we descended we saw a shuttle down, with its blast shields open; then we were surrounded by purple haze. Immediately the shuttle power cut out. Ballard managed to dead-stick land us, kind of hard, but we were unhurt. Two phasers and one vacc suit were still working. We rigged the vacc suit battery to the Engineering tricorder, left a note in case we died on this forsaken plane, and set out with our remaining electronics in a faraday cage, a compass, food, and water towards the distress signal.

It was really hot. We made turbans from the nonfunctional vacc suit, and waited until the sun was low before leaving. Nevertheless, I had a very difficult time making my way through the desert; I got heat exhaustion early and never really bounced back.

Eventually we spied Klingons ahead. They shot crossbows at us. Wait, what? The Organian Treaty doesn't apply here?!?

Anyway, we weren't doing well, so I snuck into cover and Mkele, Ballard, and Putar allowed themselves to be "taken captive" by a pair of Klingons. The Klingons asked where our fourth (me) was, and Ballard started bawling and weeping that they'd killed me. It was a great acting job. I started to tear up, and I *knew* I wasn't dead.

Anyway, while the Klingons were distracted by Sobbing Ballard, I leapt out and attacked, and a general brawl followed. Keaton threw the smaller Klingon, and Putar stabbed the big guy in the neck with a screwdriver! I managed to club his knife away. Putar took the knife and tried to get him to surrender, but no. Then a long, comical brawl happened, which had Mkele tackling him, me clubbing him, and finally Putar taking him down. We took their weapons and armor, bound them, gave them some water, and gagged them and left them in the shade.

Half an hour farther we saw a domed city in the distance.

Then we came upon an escape pod from the Karachi and a bit farther a Federation shuttle pod, probably from the Karachi too. It had been gutted, and had not, apparently, been attacked by nanites.

A bit farther on we came across a graveyard; the markers were from 45 years ago up till recently, most from 45 years ago. They had Federation names and ranks on them. There were 97 tombstones. Here are the names, ranks, and dates of deaths: <>.

We reached the dome, and it felt like cool plastic to the touch. An old man ushered us in. He said his name was Ian Deacon and that he was concerned that Angela (his granddaughter) and James Borely were missing, and that the Klingons took them.

The city inside the dome was made of red sandstone, and weirdly monolithic, rather than built up stone by stone. Someone (probably Deacon?) said it was 100,000 years old, and I wonder how they figured that out.

Deacon gave us a bit of background. Captain Mason (of the Karachi) issued general order 13, "abandon ship," so they did...most died within weeks.

One of our phasers was Most Sincerely Dead...but there was nothing at all wrong with it. Strange.

Deacon was a biologist. He told us that Klingons stole the Power Crystal, which would allow us to get off-planet. It was big and purple and we couldn't mistake it for anything else. So, lacking alternatives, we agreed to try to rescue Angela and James, and get the crystal back.

We went to the Klingon cave the old man told us about. There was a guard there, so we started a fire some distance away to get his attention, and then jumped him. We tried to get his knife; Mkele barely evaded gutting; eventually we immobilized him. We did the same with another Klingon coming out of the cave; I took an arrow in the leg (fortunately not the knee). Eventually we got him down and immobilized too.

A female Klingon yelled "release him!" The female had three human captives: a young woman, 19ish or so, a young man, and a bound man who had a knife pressed to his throat by the Klingon. Mkele started negotiating.

The Klingon thought the human colony had shot down their ship.

We ungagged the commander.

The guy with the knife to his throat was Sean Lochard. He says Doc Deacon is crazy. Sean had refused to take his "nutritional supplements" and the Doc and James said Sean was ready for the next phase of the trial. Sean and his buddy Vince stole the power crystal, and James killed Vince.

We did some cross-examination.

Based on that, we gave the Klingons their two captives back and made a pact that we wouldn't harm them, and vice-versa.

It was clear to us that James and Professor Crazypants, er, Dr. Deacon, were clearly in cahoots. We tried to come up with a plan, while we rested up and did some first aid.

Sean remembered that there used to be more people. Since Angela's father had died, all the funerals were closed-casket. He had had horrible nightmares *every single night* in the dome, and apparently thought that was totally normal, but he hadn't had any since leaving.

So we eventually went with the Chewbacca Maneuver: Sean and James stayed behind (since Deacon would be suspicious if he saw Sean, since he really wanted Angela back, and since we didn't trust James as far as we could spit), and we would return with Angela and two Klingon "captives" who weren't as bound as they looked, and the power crystal in our improvised Faraday cage. I allowed Mkele to hypnotize me so that I (since I'm carrying it) thought it contains two phasers and the tricorder, so I wouldn't tip Deacon off that we had it.

He greeted us at the door, and was clearly obsessing over the Faraday cage. He was also wearing a giant backpack that is dripping blood. I managed to sneak a peek, and inside, there were a human head and torso, horrifically still alive; there was a mangled hand around a Phaser I connected by some hideous umbilical cord to the pack. Nasty.

Since obviously Deacon wasn't fooled by the Faraday cage, Mkele released the hypnosis, and I--DAMMIT MKELE--immediately kissed Ballard. Seriously, you trust people and they abuse that trust. This was the first of many nightmarish shocks that came in quick succession.

My memory is a little hazy from this point. I think we convinced the doctor to take us to his lab; I remember wandeing through terrifying, somehow non-Euclidean Cyclopean sandstone corridors deeper and deeper into the city. Everything was like a nightmare. Nothing made sense. Eventually a door opened in a featureless wall, and we were in some sort of crazed blasphemous temple-slash-mad scientist's lab. There were two Klingon bodies on a dais--apparently the two we had left tied up in the shade earlier. I was really not feeling at all well. I think at some point here Ballard decided he'd seen enough and knocked down and immobilized the old man--but maybe that happened earlier. It's all blurry.

I remember a brain in a jar, with the eyes still connected and *watching* us. Mkele went over to a covered body, and told us we really didn't want to see. I believed her. The Klingons flipped over the bodies of their compatriots and freaked out and were going to kill Deacon, so Ballard stunned them with the Meat Gun. I don't remember when he took it or why he was carrying it. Everything there was terrifying and wrong.

Somewhere in there was an altar, with a socket in it that was clearly shaped to hold the crystal. What else could I do? It would probably mean that my soul would be sucked into the Outer Void and devoured by those things that live outside our little lights, but...I put the crystal in the socket, and there was an enormous BWOMMMMMMM as everything lit up. As far as I know my soul stayed intact.

Putar eventually figured out how this crazy alien stuff worked and managed to take the shield down. Personnel from the Yorktown beamed down, and we took the crystal and beamed out.

There's a writer from back in the 20th Century. One of his stories starts like this:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

I think he might have been right. Whatever that was down there, it was awful. This world should be put under interdict. Surely back when he was Dr. Deacon, Biologist from the Karachi, Deacon wasn't full-on Professor Crazypants; what he learned down there on Gamma Naturalis II drove him mad.

I think we did as well as we could have under the circumstances. We killed no one (although the two Klingon casualities could perhaps have been prevented), we found the remainder of the Karachi crew, we now have Deacon locked away in a padded room somewhere he can't perform hideous blood-sacrifice experiments with ancient planetary-scale alien technology from the Realms Beyond.

All the sunflower seeds I have been able to eat haven't helped. I need some R&R, and some therapy from someone who isn't going to make me perform homoerotic acts with my crewmates for her own amusement, and a stiff drink.

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Gamma Naturalis II Mission Report : Stardate 6907.25

During the Beta Shift, we were summond to a briefing room by Lt. Cmdr. Sanchez. The research team left behind on Gamma Naturalis II had missed two successive check-ins. We would be there in four weeks. We were of course to beam directly into the chamber of horrors that was the laboratory-cum-sacrificial-altar that provided the climax of our first trip there.

As you are aware if you have read my previous report on Gamma Naturalis II, it is among my least favorite places in the galaxy. After the last trip there I seriously wondered if I was losing my mind. After the one I'm about to detail, I think it's actually the universe that has gone mad, and not me.

Among the news and rumors we heard were that there were gravity/electromagnetic quakes in the sector containing Gamma Naturalis, and that they were dimensional in nature. This proves to be important.

During the time we had to prepare, we got quite a lot of desert-survival and low-tech gear together, suspecting that all technology would have failed. We put together a very clever signalling mechanism that should have allowed us to communicate with orbit even in the absence of any technology, involving, well, a box with a reversible lid.

On Stardate 6907.25 we met the transporter chief in the transporter room; there was a whole lot of activity there.

The transport seemed to take a very long time, and when we arrived, we noticed two things immediately. One, everyone's uniform (including ours) was kind of weird, and two, Doctors Deacon and Borley, whom we had left securely locked up by the Federation for the rest of their evilly demented lives, were working.

The weird uniforms: the Starfleet insignia had been replaced with a planet with a lightning bolt through it. I had a goatee and a lot more muscle (note to self: try the beard and bulking up! It looked good on me).

Ballard was wearing gold, and was a full Lieutenant.

It was obvious at a glance (from the twitching head in the jar and the flayed but still living body on a slab) that we were not--to borrow a phrase from an earlier adventure--in Kansas anymore.

Ballard assumed command; he appeared to be the ranking officer. We quickly determined that the Terran Empire was much less concerned with niceties like not-torturing-people than the Federation, and so we were going to have to convincingly play the roles of our alternate-universe selves. Ballard immediately began barking orders and swaggering; to be frank, he was extremely convincing as a martinet commander.

He accosted one of the enlisted men, who said that they sacrificed two Klingons (!!) and powered the crystal adequately, ran the first test, and nothing seemed to happen. I silkily enquired about everyone's loyalty and was assured that no one was disloyal. We just needed to use more Klingons, said the enlisted man. Maybe threatening to use Angela, Dr. Deacon's granddaughter would get results.

Then there was a small earthquake.

I asked again about loyalty, while cleaning my fingernails with the huge knife that was apparently part of my standard uniform.

Ballard appeared to have a special friend among the enlisted men, Luke Pierce. The security officer was an Ensign; all the other Terran Empire men were enlisted.

At this point we realized our signalling box hadn't made the transport with us. We needed some time to collect our thoughts and make a plan, so we left to patrol the streets around the lab. We'd barely gone around the first corner when we were jumped by two Klingons (one with two sets of eyes!) and two huge bear-like beings. They raised energy weapons, which proved ineffectual. The guard stationed outside the lab door (with, naturally, a giant backpack full of living, bleeding, tormented torso to power his phaser) came to our assistance.

There followed a long firefight with chemical-propelled slugthrowers. Since our assailants were armored, our guns were ineffective. Jones--the guard--took a knife to the head. I managed to headshot one of the Klingons; one of the ape-men was killed too, and another seriously wounded. The normal-looking Klingon fled when he heard a call or command, but we caught him when he tripped over a cylinder Putar rolled into his path. Then another, unarmed, Klingon stepped out of an alley and surrendered himself.

Putar tried to patch up Jones's knife through the head, but only made it worse. We limped back to the lab with three captives and the unfortunate Jones. We secured our captives and tried to rig up a translation tricorder. As with everything else on this accursed planet, electricity could only be produced through the pain of sentient beings. Putar got this working in short, if horrible, order.

At this point I went to see what remote sensor capability we had and got a good close-up view of how *that* was powered: flayed living body on a slab, moaning. Borley, who was operating it, seemed utterly unconcerned. I had a panic attack and tried to keep it together as I noped on out of there. Perhaps unprofessional, but...well, I'm trained for a lot of things, but not *that*.

Anyway, we started interrogating the Klingons. Turned out they were in orbit to investigate the Federation (!) works and make sure the tech came to Klingon hands. Their ship lost power and they crashlanded. They knew about the USS Yorktown. I worked up my nerves and asked Borley to scan overhead. It was the ISS Yorktown, not the USS Yorktown up there. So somehow the Klingon shuttle had gotten sucked through to Universe Prime as well.

Luke, at this point, told us that Borley was spying on us. At that point I turned the Bad Cop up to 11, had him strapped to a chair, and demanded a piece of citrus and an ordinary sheet of paper. Hey, I read it in a book once. Anyway, he was appropriately terrified. Being the bad guy, it turns out, is in fact kind of fun. And no, I did not actually torture him. I just made him *think* I was about to.

At this point we had managed to put together a working hypothesis: when the crystal was powered by sacrifice, the next high-tech activity--whether shuttle flight or transport--would cross the dimensional barrier.

Ballard ordered the sacrifice of the badly (perhaps he was right, and mortally-) wounded bear-man. I...well, we didn't have many other options, and the guy had tried with all his might to kill us. I don't feel good about this, but I don't think we could have gotten home without sacrificing someone, and we were outnumbered roughly 2-to-1, so we probably couldn't have used Borley without great risk.

The Klingon's throat was sliced, and the altar just...drank the blood. It just vanished into the stone.

Anyway, then Ballard ordered a comm link to the ISS Yorktown, stating that the three of us were coming aboard with Drs. Borley and Deacon, so that the urgency of results could be impressed upon them. Deacon panicked, but Evil Me was way, way stronger than he was, and I had little difficulty getting him onto the transporter pad. We beamed up.

Transport again took too long. When we arrived, no Borley and no Deacon. We were also immediately taken to the brig. I can only tremble at the thought of what "Ballard," "Putar," and "I" were up to in our absence.

I trust that further investigation will corroborate our stories, which, frankly, I would take to be the ravings of a drunk or a madman.

So: first I'd like to request that all personnel be evacuated from Gamma Naturalis II and the alien lab undergo orbital bombardment. But I'm sure, "no! think of the science!" will win the day. So here's the science, people: blood sacrifice of sentient beings opens a transdimensional rift between here and (at least) Universe Prime where it's the Terran Empire, who are a bunch of ruthless a-holes, and high-tech activity crosses the inhabitants of one to the other place.

The Federation is a much nicer place to live, not least because *it considers using sapients as power sources a nasty thing*. All research should be halted, and the crystal should be destroyed, perhaps by pitching it into the nearest blue supergiant star. I am aware no one will heed my wisdom here.

I do not want to ever go within 10 parsecs of Gamma Naturalis again. And anyone whom I hear saying, "well, his methods were questionable, but oh boy did Doctor Deacon get some fantastic results," is going to get a fist in the teeth.

My commendation goes to Keaton Ballard, of course, who wears the gold like he was born to it. He also wears the mantle of arrogant authority really well. I think all of us, frankly, were a bit disturbed at how naturally the role of our Evil Twins came to us. But while Atilla The Torturer was a role I think I played with some aplomb, my performance did not hold a candle to that of Lt. Ballard Of The Terran Empire.

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Nautilus Mission Report : Stardate 6909.04

The few weeks since our last mission to Gamma Naturalis had been pretty uneventful. There were ominous notes, though, in the newsfeed political reports: a faction of Federation politicians were making the case that, since the Organian Treaty protected the Klingon border, we could safely direct resources elsewhere. The opposing faction, which I will call that of the more sane and less delusional politicians, noted--of course correctly--that the Klingons were doing everything in their power to subvert the Treaty; indirect action--putting mines in the path of starships, for instance--had increased. There was also the concern that, although powerful, the Organians are not actually omniscient, and that they may only be watching the border. Certainly they could not intervene on Gamma Naturalis II when the shield was still up.

During Prime Shift, a Yellow Alert was declared. A few minutes later Ensign Putar dashed past instructing members of the Strike Team to grab kits and meet her in the transporter room. She had been selected to lead the mission. Mkele was not available to join us, but Ensign Alphaeus was.

One of the undersea domes on Nautilus--the Aquatic Studies Facility (with a population of about 10,000)--had been breached and was taking on water. The security force field that was designed to protect against such events wasn't working; the Yorktown's sensors were being jammed, so this wasn't an accident.

We were issued monocrys, and each of us carried a rebreather for ourselves and four extras in case we needed to render aid to survivors. With no sensor visibility, we had no idea how bad the situation in the dome would be. I requisitioned a Phaser II, a spear pistol, and diving knives for the team.

I had an uneasy feeling about this from the start: failed force field plus dome breach plus sensors jammed smelled just like Klingons to me. Thus, I swapped out biology in my tricorder loadout for Klingon Language, and learned how to shout "surrender!" Not that I expected any Klingons to actually surrender, but we *are* the good guys and should at least give them the opportunity.

We beamed down. There was a loud roaring noise, and the water spraying in from the breach had made the whole dome very foggy. But at least there was light and power.

We quickly located the security building where the controls for the force field should be; Ballard's bio-scan revealed five humanoids. Acting on a hunch I inquired whether those humanoids might be Klingon. Alphaeus analyzed Ballard's data and confirmed that, indeed, they were.

We made our way to the building; Putar clearly worked much harder on her swimming at the Academy than any of the rest of us, as she ended up having to assist all the other team members through a bit of nasty fast-flowing current.

We arrived at the building and assessed the external security. It was standard-issue Security gear; I have had pleasant professional dealings with Summersun in the past. The following events make me question that assessment, as you will see.

I was able to open the doors, although anyone watching the instruments would surely have seen that the security systems were accessed. We got inside and scanned. The five Klingons were the only living creatures in the building, although there were a distressing number of corpses as well. It was a three-story building, with four Klingons on the third floor and one on the second.

Putar was able to access the computer and get us visibility to the security cameras. On the third floor, three Klingons were setting explosive charges in a research room, and there were vats with what appeared to be humanoids and fetuses.

The fourth Klingon was in the room with the forcefield generator and a teleport pad.

The fifth was all alone on the second floor, halfheartedly guarding the corridor. Since we saw corpses in Summersun uniforms, we suspected the Organian treaty was not in effect, though whether that was due to our distance below the surface or the distance from the Federation-Klingon border we don't know.

Nevertheless, we decided to set a booby trap in case our weapons didn't work, since we knew that indirect action would. I rigged the spear gun with a waist-high tripwire to fire across the stair landing. Then I went up the stairs and fired my phaser, on stun, at the Klingon. I hit him, but he shrugged off the stun and pursued me. I ducked under the tripwire, but he saw it and stopped; he missed me with his shot, and I hit him again and still failed to drop him. At that point my teammates arrived and began shooting and he turned to run and warn his team members. We pursued--hitting him several times--and finally managed to stun him just before he got to the stairs to the third floor. He soaked up an astonishing number of shots before dropping, though.

We immobilized him and secured his weapons--he was wearing Summersun garb and carried a Summersun laser pistol, rather than a Klingon disruptor.

Next we proceeded up the stairs; the single Klingon in the room with the transporter pad was our next target; since if we could gain control of the pad we could keep the Klingons from escaping. As they are not generally suicide bombers, that seemed as if it would give us the best chance of disarming the bombs that had been set.

We stormed the room, and although the Klingon dodged mine and Alphaeus's shots, Ballard struck him, and his dodge brought his head squarely into Putar's shot, and he dropped like a rock.

We took stock of the situation. I made the case that our top priority--even beyond our own safety--had to be to reestablish communications and explain that the dome's sabotage was indeed a Klingon plot and that the pernicious Klingons were operating very, very far inside Federation boundaries. The team agreed. We closed and locked the door so that the Klingons trying to get to the transporter pads would have to burn their way through.

Fortunately, the jamming was Summersun gear, not some strange Klingon stuff, and Putar was able to disable it in short order. The damage to the security force field appeared to be straightforward: the power conduit leading to it had been melted with an energy weapon. This would be no more than half an hour's work to repair with a decent toolkit and spare parts. We discovered also that the pad had been set with coordinates somewhere else within the dome and that the Klingon in here had been rigging it so that all of them could beam out, leaving no one behind at the controls.

Then we reported to the Yorktown that we had five to transport to the brig, three armed and dangerous, two unconscious. As soon as the Klingon in the comms room had vanished, we requested that a repair team and a bomb disposal team. We went to the research room where the charges had been set; Alphaeus recognized that this was clearly genetic research of some kind, which raised all our eyebrows. Putar seemed torn between curiosity at what exactly had been happening here and some sort of bad reaction to the strong smells of alcohol and formaldehyde, which were indeed strongly reminiscent of our experiences on Gamma Naturalis II.

However, our speculation, and our effort to get the shield back on line, were cut short by the arrival of the bomb disposal unit, who arrived, looked at the satchel charges, turned white, and shouted "beam us all out NOW!"

The building exploded a few seconds after that happened.

We then beamed down to the transport coordinates, to find an aquashuttle that was set to return to the nearby Summersun dome. Alphaeus determined from the chemical signatures he could find by scanning that the bomb that had ruptured the dome was a chemical bomb and nothing more exotic; it was only the combination of the hole and the lack of shields that led to this being a major crisis.

My immediate recommendation is this: before the Yorktown reports any of this back to the Federation, we need to put a team into the Summersun dome in order to prevent the destruction of evidence. It is not at all clear to me whether this particular Summersun unit had been infiltrated by Klingons but the rest of the organization is OK or whether the rot goes deeper. At any rate I think we must expect significant armed resistance when we attempt to secure the Summersun dome.

I don't know why the Klingons wanted to destroy either the lab or the research dome. The security in the research facility was quite extensive. That, combined with Alphaeus's assessment that it's genetic research of some kind, and the fact that the things in the vats appeared to be humanoid, not marine creatures, get my cop sense telling me "something's not right here." Perhaps the scientists can make a compelling case that it's all perfectly normal, aboveboard research. Perhaps not.

The humanitarian crisis in the Research Facility is horrible, although of course it could have been much worse. I wish that we had been able to reestablish the force field, but I don't think, realistically, we could have arrived in time to effect repairs before the bombs went off. The Yorktown's first priority, I think, should be to assist in the evacuation of the dome; in parallel, perhaps the Strike Team and some additional security forces could secure the Summersun dome and prevent destruction of whatever documentation of the Research Facility sabotage plot exists.

We also, of course, have five Klingon prisoners, who, while not (I assume) the masterminds, were clearly the miscreants who carried out the plot. Whether or not the Federation will be able to get useful intelligence out of them, I do not know.

My recommendation for mission commendation goes, of course, to Ensign Putar, who distinguished herself as mission commander, and also, crucially, made it possible for us to reach the security building in time to capture the Klingons and discover the Summersun involvement in the plot, by assisting those of us who hadn't put in much time in the pool recently. She also got the shot that dropped the enemy guarding the transporter pad and comm jammer. It is difficult to imagine anything she could have done better in this mission.

Lt. J. G. Kagiso Mkele : 892-IV Mission Report : Stardate 7001.05

During Gamma shift-- Lt. JG Vorosign and I were briefed by Lt. Comm. Sanchez and Lt. Sudek about a transmission from Roma Aeterna on 6912.05, the voice of a woman (later determined to be Olciana Comes) beseeching her husband's ("Caius Volusianus Comes") "small golden idol to his household gods" (communicator) to return him to her after his disappearance on a camping trip with long term friends. She had seen one of the friends, "Murrius Volusianus Metilius", who had been on the trip win a battle that evening in the "Friday Night Fights"-- a coerced gladiatorial death match reserved for major criminals against the state and society. We are briefed that these are likely survivors of the SS Beagle, which had sustained meteorite damage in the vicinity 7.5 years ago, and whose secrecy was partially compromised and the crew held hostage by local authorities until approximately 1.5 years ago, when encountered by the crew of USS Enterprise. Flight Officer William B. Harrison and (First Citizen) Captain R. M. Merek were killed in that incident. An unknown number of the other 38 humans, 2 Andorians, 2 Tellarites, 2 Vulcans, and 1 Edosian crew members had been killed in the gladiatorial fights over the intervening 6 years, although some crew members assimilated under a "barbarian tribe" cover story.

As the Federation-Klingon Empire border area is refortifying due to ambiguity regarding the terms of Organian enforcement of the treaty, colonization is no longer being protected by Federation patrols, and the area needs to be kept "clean" and personnel evacuated. Our mission was to revert Prime Directive violations and evacuate what Beagle personnel we could locate. Ensign Putar attempts to research naming conventions to map Roman to Beagle names, but is only able to determine that the Volusianus nomen (clan name) may be common to the assimilated Beagle crew. We later determine that Murrius Volusianus Metilius is Shipman Apprentice Michael Mendoza and Caius Volusianus Comes is Shipman Apprentice James Adams.

I request a tranquizer gun and 5 darts, a native looking ladies' knife, monochrys armor, winter clothes, a subcutaneous monitor chip, and FRS radio watch. Vörösign requests several replica communicators sans electronics for surreptitious replacement as we locate Federation technology which might be on the planet. The Yorktown Strike Team beams down to 892-IV using the Federation anthropological/sociological research team's location in Tehoserum, Nova Britannia Province, as a safe house. The local proconsul, Claudius Markus, was the blackmailer of the Beagle team, and was aware of Enterprise staff, but seems not to know of the four-member anthro. team's origins.

Over the course of the next few days we determine the following events have occurred:

1. Michael Mendoza is killed in the Fights 12.12, possibly due to weakness from prior (untreated) injuries which were not evident from the prior week's fight.
2. James Adams fights and wins 12.19 and 12.26, generating local hype among bettors on the matches. The next fights are tonight.
3. There have been no public legal charges against James Adams.
4. The "Comes'" are not listed in the White Pages.

We prepare a cover story as plebian citizens from Vancouver, led by Quitonius Marcus Ballardius, a minor noble, interested in starting a version of the Games in Vancouver. Aura Minerva Putarius is technical film support. Attillius Rubrum Tunicum Columbinus is body guard and fighting expert. I (Gioa Africanus Michaelius) am butler/legal aide. We relay comms through the research team.

I call the proconsul's office and get Quitonius on the schedule for next Monday (four days hence) and request comps for tonight's fight-- Quitonius takes the phone and fast talks them into giving us tickets (there is not usually a live audience). The fight is at 9pm in a 4 story jail/arena building. We arrive, as instructed at 8:15pm. I pretend to take notes as I scan the building, determining that there are two oncamera guards, two additional guards with machine guns, First Citizen (Antonius Acunus), and Propidia Callogera, the director's assistant, on the main floor where the arena is. There are two guards, four office staff, and 27 prisoners on the second floor. There are two guards, two office staff, and three prisoners on the third floor. The fourth floor contains many cells but no one is on that floor.

In the course of collecting information, we witness a grossly uneven (and unannounced) fight between James Adams and Caelius Maximius Silus, a professional gladiator, in which Adams is quickly dispatched, but seemed more injured than warranted by footage of the prior week's fight. Adams was one of the prisoners on the third floor. We suspect that the other two special prisoners are crewmates on the "camping trip" and are being tortured to extract information-- probably the location of additional Beagle crew or technology.

We tail the body of Adams to the morgue, under the pretense of developing the character. There, Quitonius speaks to Olciana Comes, the wife of the communicator message. Quitonius gives his card, makes an appointment to stop by her house tomorrow (we now have an address).

The next day, we go and I talk to her while Vörösign surreptitiously replaces the household "altar" with the decoy communicator. I determine that her husband went "camping up north" with Murrius Volusianus Metilius and Gallus and Suedia Volusianus Sosius on 11.28. The four worked together as stock brokers, although Michael Mendoza had just quit. They lived in nearby apartments to which she had keys. We convince her to let us into the Sosius' apartment where we confiscate a map and replace the communicator with the fake. She also lets us into Mendoza's apartment, in which we find a job ad for miners wanted *somewhat* near the "campsite"; we confiscate the tech in that apartment, too. We forward the map coordinates to the research team to forward to Yorktown. Yorktown rescues two hiding Andorreans in a cave "up north".

That afternoon, we return the the jail, and meet with Propidia Callogera, continuing the ruse about the Vancouver Fights. We bribe the guards to allow Vörösign and Ballard to "interview" the prisoners on the third floor. They determine the two prisoners are Beagle crew and mark coordinates for Yorktown to beam them out later that night.

No evidence of elevated cultural contamination was discovered.

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : 892-IV Mission Report : Stardate 7001.05

Our mission on 892-IV, colloquially known as Roma Aeterna, took place beginning Stardate 7001.01.

Before the mission, we had noted that certain trends were emerging in the Federation news sources: Klingons had returned as bad guys in the popular media, colonization efforts had been drastically curtailed, and the political factions claiming that the Federation did not need to worry about its borders were on the defensive. At least the last of these is a positive and long-overdue trend.

On our Gamma shift, Lt. JG Mkele and I were summoned to a briefing by our superior officers, Lt. Cmdr. Sanchez and Lt. Sudek. We were given the backstory of Roma Aeterna as reported by Captain Kirk of the Enterprise from his visit about a year and a half before ours, and then given the following information.

Communicator transmissions have been received from Roma Aeterna. They are coming from a woman, whom we found out later was Olcinia Comes, who has been praying to the gods, as her husband has apparently taught her to do in times of dire need, in front of the little metal altar. She says that her husband has been kidnapped from a camping trip and forced to fight in the arena, along with his friend. Her husband is Caius Volusianus Comes, and his friend is Murrius Volusianus Metilius. She saw his friend on the Friday Night Fights TV show; he barely won his match.

Intel suggests that these men are part of the Beagle's crew, having gone native.

Our mission is fairly clear: first, ascertain the level of cultural contamination, and put an end to it. We can't be having pre-Contact civilizations in possession of communicators. Second would be to evacuate any Beagle survivors, if possible.

We know that the Proconsul Claudius Marcus knows about the Federation but is keeping it secret. Olcinia Comes is living in the city of Tehoserum, where there is a Federation safehouse. The city is the capital of Nova Brittania.

We evolved a plan, largely spearheaded by Ballard, to be a group of plebians from another city. The plan is actually rather brilliant: we are impressed by the success of the Friday Night Fights show, and want to put together our own TV series in our city--the Roma Aeterna analogue of Vancouver--although ours will be less honest fighting and more kayfabe narrative-of-the-fighters stuff.

Our extremely-convincing cover identities:

• Atillus Rubrumtunicum Columbinus
• Gioa Africanus Mkelius
• Keatonus Marcus Ballardius
• Aura Minerva Putarius

Ballard was to be the TV show producer; I was his bodyguard. Putar was the technician--camera and sound operator, and Mkele was Ballard's (and the party's) personal assistant.

We beamed down into the safehouse; it was the base of a four-person research team, and had a magnificent 19-inch CRT television. The Yorktown was out of comm range at the L2 point.

There had been forty-seven people on the Beagle. 40 of them were human. The camping trip--perhaps to communicate with their Andorian comrades--had taken place November 28 2727 (local date, 6911.28 stardate). On 12/5 Murrius (actualy Michael Mendoza, a climatologist/survivalist) fought and barely won, and Olcinia sent her message. He was killed in a fight on 12/12. On 12/19 Comes (actually James Adams) handily won his fight. On 12/26, Comes won again, with minor injuries and was fast becoming a crowd favorite. His next fight was to be January 2.

The fighting appeared to be fairly honest. Ballard schmoozed our way into the facility with our reality-TV show cover. There were show guards--dressed as Roman centurions--and police, dressed as normal police. A scan showed that almost all prisoner/combatants were held on the second floor. The four-story arena/studio had only three people on the third floor and the fourth floor was empty; two of the three on the third floor were moved to a room that we surmised was a place from where they would be forced to watch the fight, and the third was Comes himself, who was to be a combatant.

The Proconsul and the new (six months' tenure) First Citizen Anthony Aucaunus, were in attendance. We had set up an appointment with the Proconsul for a few days hence. When Caius Volusianus Comes came up to fight, neither he nor his opponent (one Caelus Maximius Silus, a professional gladiator) were introduced. The fight wasn't really a fight--it was straight-up murder. Comes never had a chance.

This represented, I think, our biggest error of judgment; we had assumed, that since Comes had become a crowd favorite, that he was likely to be given a defeatable opponent. We did not realize that the Proconsul clearly wanted him dead.

We made contact with the Friday Night Fights production assistant, Propidia Calogera, and then followed the meat wagon to where it was greeted by a distraught woman, Olcinia Comes in the flesh.

Ballard turned on his charm and we proceeded to interrogate her, but in a charming and non-coercive way. Gallus Volusianius Sosius and his wife Suedia were very good friends of the Comeses, and lived in the same apartment complex. While Ballard was chatting up Olcinia, I performed the switcheroo to replace her communicator-altar with one that looked identical but was in fact just intricate metal filigree with no electronics inside. Alas, the gods will no longer answer her prayers.

We were now pretty sure that Sosius and his wife were the two imprisoned on the third floor. Putar suspected that they had been captured on the way back from their trip and that Marcus was leaning on them to reveal the location of the Andorrians and the "camping cabin," by murdering them in front of their friends one by one.

Olcinia agreed to let us in to the apartments of the people who went camping. In Sosius and Suedia's apartment, we found a communicator (quickly swapped with a dummy), a map to their camping site (which was very welcome, and which we pilfered), and a bag of a marijuana-like subtance, which we flushed down the toilet. In the second apartment, Murrius Meltilius's, we found that he had quit his job and circled a want ad for miners wanted someplace to the northeast. There was also a communicator, which, of course, we swapped for a dummy.

The coordinates of the map led us to a pair of Andorians, who were beamed to safety aboard the Yorktown.

We decided to try and break the remaining two Beagle crewmembers out of prison. The assistant producer gave us a tour of the facilities and explained the rules; grand theft would typically mean you fought until you died, or until the crowd liked you so much you got pardoned; petty theft would get you a single fight and if you won you were set free. We bribed the guards and I went and had a conversation with the two prisoners, where I explained in somewhat guarded terms that their blue-skinned friends had been rescued and we were going to try to break them out. They were less appreciative than you might think.

That night, they and we were all beamed aboard the Yorktown, and we left Roma Aeterna; I imagine that we are all personae non gratae with the Proconsul now (we did not attend our meeting with him, obviously), but on the other hand, he has to worry a bit less about spacemen with future tech showing up to rain on his little totalitarian parade.

It would have been nice if we could have saved Comes, but I find it difficult to imagine a way in which we could have managed that, saved the Andorians and Sosius and Suedia, and removed the communicators to limit further cultural contamination. Plus this way we don't have to put him on trial for an egregious violation of the Prime Directive. All in all, a quite successful mission--and yet another one in which I did not get shot. Ballard was magnificent in his role as slightly-sleazy entertainment-industry producer.

I understand the need for the Prime Directive, but it is unpleasant to see, for instance, a society in which blood sports are met with universal acclaim and no one thinks it's even the tiniest bit unsavory. Still, better Roman-analogue brutality than hideous nightmare hell-creatures from beyond space and time, literally powered by human suffering. I fervently hope we do not go back to Gamma Naturalis any time soon.

Lt. J. G. Kagiso Mkele : Herne Mission Report : Stardate 7005.31

Prime Team – Strike Team: Ballard, Ensign Keaton; Mkele, Lt JG Kagisoo; Putar, Ensign Aura; Vörösign, Lt JG Atilla

Subject Headings: corporation-Argos Import/Export-employees (Anton Shrike (Human male))corporation-Leken Warp Dynamics-employees (Kain-Kin (Brecon female)) — corporation-Leken Warp Dynamics-employees (Kain-Kin (Brecon female)) — corporations-individual (Argos Import/Export, Macrotech Terranetics, Leken Warp Dynamics, Triple Helix biotech) — criminal organization-Orion Syndicate-Five Systems Cabal-individuals (Capria (Human male), Denav (Orion? female), Thalal (Orion male)) — location-city: Arden, planet: Herne (Argos Import/Export Warehouse, Silicon Towers) — mission type: investigation, law enforcement — planets-individual (Brucallia, Brecon homeworld; Herne, Vagabond System) — sapient species (Brecons, Humans, Orions)

Lt. Sudek summons Strike Team members Putar, Ballard, Vörösign, and I to the briefing room during beta shift. There, he informs us that a single M66 warp coil destined for the USS Enterprise refit was stolen from the Leken Warp Dynamics warehouse on Burkalia (the Brecon homeworld) approximately two months ago. Starfleet investigators found indications that this was an inside job. Recently, Kain Kim, a Brecon warehouse worker, was found knifed to death on Burkalia. Investigation into her history indicated that she had been blackmailed by a human named Capri to compromise security auditing at the warehouse. This Capri has known ties to the Orion "5 Systems Cabal", led by Starfleet deserter, Thalal. It is suspected that Thalal is behind the disappearance of several merchant ships over the past 30 years and his cabal is dealing in arms and organs.

We prepare our cover (representatives of Triple Helix Botanicals), our reservations, and our kit. We research the system (light gravity, cold, long days; 1M people on planet, 15% in Arden; 75% human, 25% Brecon (a large, four-armed humanoid race); Macrotech Terranetics settled planet and system ~100 years ago and has an orbital station in the system; fauna of rabbits, hawks, snow spiders, etc...)

The following morning, we beam down near the Silicon Towers Hotel (where Cabal agents are known to be), in Arden City, Planet Herne. We check into the hotel under our assumed cover. Once in our suite, Putar hacks into the hotel computer system (passing as another IP address). She looks at the guest list and we do not identify Thalal. She looks at security video, and, using face recognition routines and old Starfleet ID photos, detects Thalal disguised as a human on the 12th floor. He is seen going into room 1213. Room 1213 is registered to "Denav". This is probably the stunning human woman we see in the security tapes entering the room. We also see Capri enter the room. There is no footage of them on this floor prior to yesterday. Putar hacks us rental of room 1413, directly above, and we go to that room. We determine that the hot woman left the room this morning and we think Capri is also absent, but are unsure. We see a third guy leave the room that morning, as well.

Ballard gets a cleaning cart and enters room 1213 in a hotel staff disguise. Upon determining that no one is present, he comms us and we drop a motion-activated, delayed-transmitter burst camera through the floor of 1413. While we are doing that, Ballard investigates the luggage in the room. He finds three sets of hiking boots, all of which he bugs. He determines that the third person is Raife Scott (there is a tag on the bag). Raife is probably also Anton Shrike, of Argos Import/Export, since this person's business cards are in a hidden compartment of Raife's suitcase. Ballard also plants a camera bug in the brim of one of the men's hats. Our camera was up and running just in time to catch Ballard sniffing the woman's underwear. While this produced the useful information that she is Orion, not human (Ballard claims to have recognized Orion perfume), I must say it was disgusting behavior for a Starfleet officer and he, perhaps, ought to be censured.

We decide to investigate the Argos warehouse. Ballard researches properties for sale and rent in the area and we rent a VERTOL craft. We scan several proerties in the area and JUST SO HAPPEN to fly over the Argos warehouse several times in between hovering over public listings. A heavily armed Orion, and two humans are in the warehouse, as well as a VERTOL craft. A cargofreighter is in the warehouse yard. One room in the warehouse is a coldroom. On a later pass, we determine it contains human organs.

We go back to the hotel, notice the three from room 1213 in the bar, and monitor them. Denav and Anton go upstairs after eating. Capri stays in the bar quite a while before heading up the lift. Camera evidence of the evening, and their rising late/hungover the next day indicates a wild threesome occurred. They check out.

We surveille the warehouse again (on Capri's hat bug). Thalal and a Brecon are in another room of the warehouse. Two other humanoids are present, and one humanoid corpse in the cold room. We determine the living humanoids are Capri and Denav. We hear the cabal plans a pickup of illegal body armor that night at midnight at Reese Flat's and that there are more criminals involved. We call in the Yorktown to get them to beam up everyone at Reese Flats at midnight, using the hiking boot bugs for a location fix.

Denav, Thalal, and the Brecon leave in the VERTOL, Capri stays behind. The body (whom we suspect to be Anton) is still in the cold room. We uniform up and go in to arrest Capri. I block the second exit to the warehouse. Capri tries to flee and Vörösign stuns him and performs the arrest. The body in the cold room is, indeed, that of Anton Shrike, who was also killed by vibroknife, like Kim Kain.

We find the packaging of the warp core in the yard near the cargo freighter, but not the warp core, itself. With sufficient evidence of crime, and a judical ambush plan for midnight to be executed by the Yorktown, we beam up with our prisoner.

I must commend Putar's performance on this mission. While Ballard was also key in completing the mission, I would be horrified if he received commendation for his performance on Herne.

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Herne Mission Report : Stardate 7005.31

During our Beta shift, the Yorktown Strike Team was called to a briefing room by Lt. Sudek. We were told that Leken Warp Dynamics, a small starship company, had won the refit contract for Starfleet warp coils. The first coils were to be installed in prototype nacelles for the Enterprise. However, the warehouse in which they were housed had been robbed. It appeared to have been an inside job: the clerk, Kain-Kin had been blackmailed. This happened about two months ago.

What really brought this to Starfleet's attention was that she had been recently murdered, with a vibroblade, on Brucallia, the Brecon home world. Brecons are four-armed humanoids, seven to eight feet tall.

Intelligence tied a human male named Capri to this crime. He was suspected of having ties to the 5 Systems Cabal, a criminal syndicate, largely Orion, which dealt in arms and organs. Er, armaments and organs. Given the polybrachial nature of the Brecons, and given organ trafficking, I thought I'd better clarify. We suspected Capri of working for the Orion crime boss Thalal, capo of the 5 Systems Cabal.

A little research indicated that there were basically three things one could do with a stolen warp coil: sell it to the highest bidder, outfit a smallish smuggling ship to make it very fast, or as a dirty bomb, capable of destroying a city block or so in a terrorist attack. This was the first time a warp coil had ever been stolen, as far as we could determine.

It was thought that Capri could be found in the Vagabond System, Planet Herne, city Arden, in the Silicon Towers Hotel. Herne had been colonized and terraformed by Macrotech Terranetics; it was a light-gravity cold world with long days.

We beamed down under the cover of being employees of Triple Helix, a biotech firm. The Silicon Towers hotel was all shiny black and silver chrome. Putar quickly acquired access to their internal systems, and we determined from the security logs that someone who looked a lot like Thalal wearing human disguise had entered Room 1213, along with Capri, an unknown human, and an extremely attractive woman. Room 1213 was registered to one Denav. They had been there only one night.

We finagled ourselves room 1413, directly above 1213 (the hotel did not have a floor numbered thirteen, due to ancient human supersitition). We set about our surveillance plans. Ballard liberated a hotel housekeeping cart, and he acted like a janitor and gained access to room 1213 (Putar controlled the hotel locks, so access was not a problem). In the room he planted a few audio bugs, and let us know it was safe to drill a hole through our floor/their ceiling to put a camera in their room.

There were three bags in the room. One was tagged "Denav" and contained, among other things, some feminine undergarments, which Ballard quickly reported were scented with Orion perfume. Thus: Denav was Orion and presumably the incredibly attractive female. There were some hiking boots, a discharged B-cell, and a can of light beer. A second bag had a tag, "Rafe Scott". A search of this bag revealed a secret compartment revealing it to belong to Anton Shrike, Owner-Operator of Argos Import/Export. The third bag belonged to Capri.

Ballard put trackers in everyone's shoes, and a camera in a hat. Then he skedaddled.

Next we went down to the industrial district and rented a vertol. We began flying above the warehouses, scanning them. This fit nicely into our Triple Helix cover story: we needed warehouse space for a new product, and were looking to find something appropriate. We just happened to fly over Argos Import/Export a few times while doing so.

Argos contained a warehouse building with a large vertol inside it. It was inhabited by two humanoids of uncertain species and one Orion. It had a freezer room, which had a body in it. We could see the Orion was armed with a pistol weapon and a two-handed beam weapon, as well as a sword, which might well be a vibroblade. We returned to the hotel.

Denav and Scott and Capri were in the hotel bar at about 5:30 PM. Denav and Scott went upstairs, while Capri stayed at the bar most of the night. He had four drinks and eventually went up to the room as well. We split the night into four watches and monitored room 1213.

The surveillance video did indeed prove that Orion women's reputation for insatiability and inventiveness is well-earned.

About noon the next day, the three left the hotel. Putar verified that they had checked out. The shoe tracker and hat-cam both worked flawlessly, and we easily determined that our quarry went to the warehouse. Thalal and a Brecon were in the main room, and we heard them talk about a pickup at Reese Flats at midnight. They were to receive a shipment of powered body armor. This was only a little illegal, but at least it would give us a chance to get Thalal into custody, and he might be planning to use the warp coil as payment, or we might be able to find evidence tying him to Kain-Kin's murder.

The vertol left in the late evening, heading for Reese Flats. We suited up in Starfleet uniforms, and entered the warehouse. I attempted to arrest Capri, but he fled, so I stunned him and then secured him. We determined that the body in the cooler was Shrike and that he had been stabbed with a vibroblade in an MO very similar to Kain-Kin's murder.

The packaging for the warp coil was found in the freighter but the core itself was missing.

Presuming that the Yorktown would have the Reese Flats miscreants safely in hand, we requested to beam up with our captive Capri and the corpse of Shrike. I am writing this report before our final debrief, so I don't know whether forensics were able to match Thalal's vibroblade to the wounds on Shrike and Kain-Kin, or whether he was indeed offering the warp coil as payment for the power armor.

Nevertheless, I feel we accomplished our mission quite successfully, and with a minimum of bloodshed. In fact, no one was hurt except for Capri, and his stunner hangover was probably no worse than his self-inflicted hangover that morning.

I also find that I am acquiring a taste for detective work, and am nearing completion of my Investigator certification. While flexing my brain is somewhat less natural to me than flexing my muscles, it also seems to lead to fewer Wound Badges, and (so far) has not left me bleeding out in an evacuated-but-sealed pressure suit, or even bleeding copiously from my right brachial artery.

Lt. J.G. Kagiso Mkele : Loch Mining Colony Mission Report : Stardate (22)7007.31

After alpha shift, we were having dinner when we were called to Procedings Room by Capt. Foster (and no department chiefs). I thought this might be in relation to the stolen warp coil from the Herne mission (which still hasn't been found) or about the second party to the illegal munitions sale (which did not show at the rendezvous).

The Captain was looking at the ex-mercenary Lt. from Breuse (Francisco Jackson Stewart) on the viewscreen. Reminder- he hadbeen working for the Prellarian mining colony and against the Sterling Colony, and lost his Federation mercenary license as a result of his illegal activities. Stewart has washed up on Loch Planet, a steamy, hot, polluted, small planet on the less desirable end of the galaxy which had been given by the Organians as a Federation protectorate but which subsequently declared independence a few months ago. He has contacted the Yorktown about Orion prirates harrassing Loch Planet. He seems to this this will help him to get his mercenary license back.

Capt. Foster is unable to help him directly, as Loch is Independent, but we volunteer to be "fired for misrequisitioning equipment", and promptly form the Brunswick Expedition. We gear up with respirators,monochrys and ablative armor, a tricorder with language chips, a tranq pistol (30 rounds), medic kit, counterfeit/forgery kit, and a triple espresso. Putar rigs us an emergency tweeter. We are "discharged" and shuttle down to the on-planet starport in the sole town, one of a few thousand souls.

Interviewing a stevedore from the ship, I determine they are not paying off the Orions. Stewart talks to customs guy; there seem to be about three dozen different Orions. Sometimes they ride in on tauntaroos from the north, sometimes they space in.

In the saloon, there are two human prostitutes, an Orion prostitute, and four male Orions together in the saloon. Ballard interviews the prostitutes while Vorosign and I get a table to scope the place and Putar gets us food. Stewart plays with the piano.

Ballard hires the two neglected professional women to distract the two Orion guys hovering around the Orion pro. Two other Orions come over to our table, blustering. One grabs me in the booth and I de-escalate the situation into a sexual/social one. The two bluffed Orions join in looming over the table. One grabs Putar. Vorosign unholsters his gun under the table while faking drinking the beer Putar had to slam down while catching her balance. I guess these guys like it rough. Putar tried to slip out of his grasp and couldn't. I give a drink to the leader, Nadlo. I critically de-escalate just as it's getting tense by accepting Nadlo proposal that we all have a dance.

Vorosign cuts in to spare Putar the angst and everything spins into a fight, which we win, with no fatalities thanks to the tranq gun... although Putar did get disturbingly violent. The Orion woman flees and we chase her carriage on the Orion men's tauntauroos, but she gets away.

We return to the saloon, stabilize the unconscious Orions, and put them in the hoosegow. Vorosign and I try to good cop-bad cop interrogate, but Nadlo lashes out at me (misses). We then interrogate a second guy (the Putar stabbed), but that doesn't work, either.

Ballard and Vorosign have a fake meeting in the hallway to trick the Orions into thinking we've caught them all and that we are debating killing them or turning them over to the Federation. When we talk to the third guy, he leaks that there is Li2 on the planet and that there are probably eight other Orions, either on their ship or in the mine. Is the Li2 the reason for the independence move, too?

Putar explosive traps the road into town from the north.

We try to convince the mayor to pay taxes to the Feds and come back into Fed protection, but he is recalcitrant. We take it to the people. Sadly, neither Ballard nor I are convincing, but Putar is rousing. One guy in the crowd pulls her aside and "explains" that Loch Planet hired Orions to sabotage Klingon efforts, in order for the Organians gave it to the Federation. The Federation scientist on planet figured it out and the town had him killed by the Orions.

Putar convinces the townspeople (in a give-me-complicity-and-give-me-death speech) to vote to re-join the Federation and we send a sptweet to Yorktown. We storm the mayor's office and "fix" the subspace comms and contact SF while the mayor stonewalls. At our urging, the townspeople elect our informant mayor, and try again to change town/planet policy.

The Orions in the mine to the north try to charge the city but we face them down with the threat of the mined road.

A bear-man and four Orions land at the spaceport and try to sneak into town to rescue their companions. We eject the jailed Orions from town and tell them to take the message to the Syndicate-- this is SF space, and the Yorktown is in orbit. They leave the planet.

Mission complete. Looking forward to my paid vacation to Cosplay IV.

Orions are not nearly so dashing and romantic as they appear in the movies.

MVP vote to Putar for effective speechifying, tactical support, comms wizardry, and sticking it to The Man.

Mission Report: Loch or What I Did During My Short Retirement Stardate 700730

Lt. J.G. Atilla Vörösign : Loch Mission Report or What I Did During My Short Retirement : Stardate 7007.31

The Yorktown Strike Team was called to the Proceedings Room, by just Captain Foster. No department heads were present. That seemed kind of strange.

On the screen was the mercenary, Francisco Jackson Stewart, we'd run into on our Bruese mission a couple years ago. He was one of the bad guys then and had lost his Federation mercenary license as a result of his being on the wrong side of the Prellarian/Sterling conflict there.

We were told about the planet Loch. It was an outpost planet on the Federation/Klingon border, unaligned, and mostly humans. It was being hassled by Orions.

Why was Starfleet not involved? Not clear immediately. The Federation had convinced the Organians that Loch should be a Federation planet--and then they went independent. Why?

Loch was a hot world (avg 100F), with slightly light gravity (5/6 G) and a polluted atmosphere.

The humans had hired Francisco to help defend them. He was going by "Lefty" these days. He would like his within-the-Federation mercenary license reinstated, and thus he'd come to us to offer a deal that would let him get that.

Of course, Starfleet Officers couldn't help him. It was after all an independent world. There was an easy solution.

All of us were relieved of our duties for some bullshit (as a private citizen, I got to use words like that) trumped-up charge like jaywalking on Sunday, and were once again private citizens, free of responsibilities and cares. I immediately celebrated by drinking a handle of tequila and hiring some hookers. Well, no, I didn't, but I thought about it. Anyway.

As private mercenaries--the Brunswick Company--we suited up; I took monocrys armor and a rainbow carbine; Putar took a rapier, Mkele an air gun, and Ballard the classic laser pistol. Putar made a backpack-sized subspace tweeter we could use for emergency contact. We got the local horse-equivalents and respirators and headed out on the monthly supply caravan.

The starport was the first surprise. It wasn't a muddy field. No, it was a fancy concrete structure, with full repair facilities (but no spare parts). In town, no apartments were for rent, and the colonists did include some children and families, so it wasn't just a terrifying 19th-century testosterone-laden mining town. But it still had an obvious saloon just like it would have if it were, which was the only place to get a room.

The Orions were very visible in town and acting exactly like a 20th-century biker gang (or perhaps 19th-century outlaw gang, more appositely) terrorizing the place. The gang, we learned, came to town from the north. In the saloon there were four Orion males hanging out on their own and one super, super-hot Orion hooker (see, I can have those opinions when I am a private citizen).

The men came over. One grabbed Mkele. She made nice with them, one grabbed Putar. I sighed and got a beer. This was clearly going to end in violence. A dude named Nodlo was their leader. Mkele de-escalated deftly. Ballard noted to them that they hadn't killed anyone yet and that this would be a bad day to start. No one listened.

Then they insisted that the women dance. Putar didn't want to, so I was forced to cut in. Then Lefty called the Orion next to him ugly, Putar got groped again, and I slugged the leader really hard with a whiskey bottle. We started having an old-fashioned bar brawl--I pistol-whipped a guy, and then Lefty drew a knife, at which point, so did the man he was fighting, and things started to get a little out of hand. Ballard judo-threw a guy, Putar stabbed the man who'd groped her, he stayed up and shot her. Mkele shot the guy fighting Ballard with a tranq dart. I clubbed the guy on Lefty and then Ballard shot him.

The dancing girl had fled in the excitement and we realized she'd left town to the north, presumably to the Orion camp. We chased her but couldn't catch her.

The Orion men were all unconscious but still breathing, so we stabilized them, stripped them to their skivvies, and threw 'em in the hoosegow.

We went into a store where the traders were rudely and racistly shooing out a group of Klingons who had, in fact, not been causing any trouble. Putar bought their kid some candy, which was very nice of her. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a fan of Klingons or especially their government--but this *was* an independent planet, and they were just being peaceful customers. In retrospect this may have been where my sympathy for the colonists began to evaporate.

We tried to interrogate the guy Putar stabbed and Nadlo. It didn't go well. The third guy was the one who spilled the beans: twelve Orions (probably including these four) were on the planet for the dilithium. Putar suspected that the reason for independence was that the settlers didn't want to pay taxes on dilithium.

I then proceeded to terrify Nadlo by slipping him a condom and warning him that Mkele was both insatiable and riddled with hideous STDs. He totally bought it. Ballard did some acting in the hall about how many of them (i.e. the rest) we had gotten.

The Syndicate, we were told, will take notice.

If the rest were not on the ship they were probably in the mine.

Ballard was setting up a message to the remaining Orions to surrender but then we decided to have a little chat with the townsfolk and tell them that if they pay their taxes, this will all go away. We learn that the Mayor's office *was* the Federation official's office.

Putar mined the road leading to the Orion camp while this was going on.

The mayor was absolutely adamant that the people wanted independence, and he was completely unwilling to make the call to the Federation to boot out the Orions. So we decided to take it to the people. Ballard failed to convince them. Mkele failed to convince them. Putar succeeded. Some guy told Putar he hired the Orions to sabotage the Klingon mine in order for the Organians to rule in favor of the Federation, and then to kill the Federation research who got suspicious.

So we changed our tactics: hey townsfolk: would you rather be complicit or dead? Your call.

We went to confront the mayer. He tried to bluff, Lefty tied him up, and after Putar hacked the computer it confirmed what we had heard. The mayor still refused to play ball so we had a popular referendum and elected a new mayor (the man who confessed to Putar). We sent an actual subspace message with the researcher's gear requesting provisional Federation status.

We then thought about cutting a deal with the remaining Orions, but decided we could hold them off long enough, until the cavalry arrived.

Five Orions showed up. We intimidated four of them and fired at the feet of the last guy, who then turned around too. We proceeded to set up a perimeter. All of the townsfolk were cowering in their hovels rather than helping defend their town.

Then five more people (maybe the same five; I'm not sure, but it was four Orions and a bear-guy, whatever race *that* is) showed up at the spaceport. They were trying to sneak in and we caught them. We yelled at each other. They wanted their men back. We agreed to the trade if they'd take their guys and leave and not come back (remember here: we were outnumbered by the remaining Orions and very likely outgunned); we pointed out that the Federation was on the way.

They agreed to the deal; we handed over the prisoners. There was some mutual grudging respect between us, and I gotta say, they earned it. Sure, these guys were Orion Pirates, but they were far more brave and honorable, in the end, than the townsfolk we were defending.

Putar watched the Orion ship leave on the sensors and realized that this was the same ship that had attacked the Sterlings way, way back when.

We safely detonated the TNT we'd mined the road with so it would no longer be a threat, and about then the Yorktown showed up.

We were quickly rehired into our former jobs, and here we are. I came out of this non-mission with more respect, and maybe a little less antipathy, towards both Klingons and Orions, than I had going in. Again, they're still clearly the bad guys, but, well, this time we had a Klingon farming family just trying to get by and being treated crappily by humans, and we had some definite-bad-guy Orions, but those guys were at least hired to be goon muscle and were, you know, doing a dirty job competently and without excessive bloodshed. Whereas the settlers who hired them were conniving murderous cowards who deserved a lot worse than they got.

I gotta say, retirement was not nearly as relaxing as I thought it was going to be. I didn't get to do any fishing at all, even though there was plenty of dynamite.