Star Trek: Emergency Deep
S01E16 “Straight to the Moon”
S01E16 Straight to the Moon title card
Dramatis Personae
- Capt Greg Ellison, Human-Deltan Commanding Officer (Dan)
- Dr Patrick Troughton, Human Chief Medical Officer (Doug)
- Cmdr Morpheus Drake, Human Executive Officer / Flight Officer (Ivan)
- Lt Galinha, Tamarian Chief Operations Officer (Ivan)
- Lt JG John Hippocampus, Beluga whale Chief Science Officer (Razz)
Stardate: 58592.5 (5th August 2381, 2045 hrs local time)
1
It is almost a week after the Jenolan Dyson Sphere jaunt and Earth’s moon beckons.
And within is Lake Armstrong
The Norway class NCC-72227 USS Östergötland is recalled to Reykjavik Station on Earth for a full maintenance & repairs while the command crew is summoned to Tycho City on Luna for to receive awards by none other than Admiral Kathryn Janeway.
The Danube-class Runabout USS Rajang, piloted by Ensigns Burke and Latour are dispatched to retrieve them as Östergötland sails by the moon. Tycho City is a huge dome city beside Lake Armstrong. After landing, a trio of Starfleet lieutenants greet and escort them to Starfleet Command Tycho City Auditorium. During the event, Janeway bequeaths Hippocampus the Starfleet Decoration of Gallantry, Troughton the Starfleet Surgeon Decoration & Ellison the Starfleet Medal of Honor. (Thanks, Command Division Sourcebook.) Meanwhile, Galinha is promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Drake however is not awarded anything for reasons unknown. He but applauds with the audience. It is yet unknown why, but he did have an encrypted private communique from Starfleet before their arrival to Sol.
2
Someday we’ll visit New Berlin
After the evening event, the guests mingle with each other, sampling the food and beverages. Galinha strides to the bar and requests Romulan ale from the waiters. The waiter order a glass from the replicator. Never tasting real Romulan ale before, he finds the taste of the synthehol agreeable. Immediately he orders a whole keg. Hippocampus joins him. The waiters are annoyed, but they replicate a keg for him. Galinha uses Hippocampus’ grav sled to sneak the keg out of the building. They begin looking for a way to Lake Armstrong to engage in some skinny-dipping. Drake sighs and follows them from afar.
Meanwhile Dr. Troughton bumps into an old friend Dr. Bash Horzan, a xenobotanist. Dr. Horzan invites him to the adjacent Aldrin Research Centre to see a puzzling alien horticultural specimen.
At the back of the ballroom, Ellison meets Admiral Janeway privately. She informs him that Starfleet Intelligence will have some definite news of his missing half-sister Sally Ellison. Perhaps they would learn how a Romulan spy surgically altered to look like Sally Ellison came to be. After the short meeting, Ellison leaves the Starfleet building & decides to travel the city via hovercab and do some soul searching.
Elsewhere, in the streets of Tycho City, the skinny-dipping party thinks it would take too long to circumvent a zoo. So Galinha and Hippocampus decide to cut a straight path to the lake via Tycho City Zoo.
3
All these awards and medals have game mechanics effects
At the Aldrin Centre, Dr. Horzan shows a plant-like creature – a bulbous pod of brown and green atop a mass of vine-like tendrils – contained in a vertical transparent aluminum cylinder. He claims that it moves like an animal when but is now inert somehow. Dr. Horzan tries to scare the creature into moving by screaming at it. Dr. Troughton tells Dr. Horzan to slowly open the cylinder’s hatch, then tries to poke it with a stylus.
Suddenly, then vines lash out violently. The tendrils hold the hatch open and try to grab him. Dr. Troughton evades the vines, taps on his combadge and calls Starfleet security. The vines latch on to various structures in the laboratory. It pushes against the structure hard, then the floor collapses down into the floor, while the ceiling caves in. The creature falls into the hole underneath it.
However, Dr. Troughton notes that a 2-metre long tritanium tube long has fallen from the ceiling above: an EMP device. The fall has armed it. Dr. Horzan tells him that the next floor up is a weapons lab. They need to disarm it before it sets off. Thankfully, Troughton (with a good Daring + Engineering roll) identifies a control panel and hits the button to shut down the weapon.
Troughton tells off the weapons scientists peering down from the hole above as Security arrives. They inform the security team about the plant monster on the loose.
4
It is early evening at the Tycho City Zoo. Not a lot of visitors at this time of the night. Galinhas and Hippocampus (and the keg) evade zoo security personnel skillfully by flitting in and out of the paved zoo streets. However, their route to Lake Armstrong is blocked by security forcefield. The gate leads to the dangerous animals exhibits which are closed for maintenance, except for one.
The paved paths transform into a raised wooden walkway over a swampy surface. There are lamps illuminating their way to the lake. Then they pass by an enclosure. It was the only animal enclosure with an activated forcefield dome. Hippocampus peered closer and sees a cute, white, fluffy creature. The exhibit is only marked DANGEROUS ORGANISM on the forcefield cage controls. He has no idea what it is, but did not deactivate the forcefield to get a closer look.
Can’t wait for a live action moopsy
They continue and soon reach the empty aquatic exhibits overlooking the expansive Lake Armstrong. Below them, the swamp has given way to the lake waters. They dump the keg on the pier with a thump.
“Look out behind you!” Drake suddenly yells from the shadows, phaser drawn. On the pier, a number of the dangerous, white, fluffy creatures are flopping energetically on the deck — and ominously — towards them.
Notes
- The scenario was born out of Troughton’s player Doug crack of “going to the moon” off-character.
- Troughton provided an NPC, his daughter Dr. Clare Troughton, who was a medical doctor on the moon.
- Yes, I pulled a moopsy this session.
