Star Trek: Emergency Deep
S01 E04 “Behold, A First Contact”
S01E04 Behold, a First Contact title card
- Stardate: 58465.9
- Location: Paulson Nebula.
In the Paulson Nebula, USS Östergötland NCC-72227 is immobilised by a tractor beam from a 1.2 km-long space creature. It fires a magma missile at them. On Captain Greg Ellison‘s orders, Tactical Officer Lieutenant Libby dos Santos‘ phaser shot disrupts the tractor beam, allowing them to break free. Scanning the creature, Ops Officer Lieutenant Commander Tosk the Studious finds that its tractor beam works on a higher dimension allowing to grab ships through their shields.
Part Deltan, Ellison uses empathic abilities on the creature & finds that it’s confused & in great pain. It connects with Ellison telepathically, who convinces it to stand down. Meanwhile, Conn Officer Commander Morpheus Drake easily evades the magma missile.
Before going in to investigate, Science Officer Lieutenant Leopold Hill aboard shuttle Hjälmaren at the nebula’s border is ordered to stay & keep watch.
Stellar Cartography
Ellison tells the creature they will try to help it. Drake manoeuvres the ship closer. Trained in xenobiology, Tosk discovers pain synapses & pinpoints the source: 3 puncture wounds in the skin, each 5 metres in size. A closer scan reveals 3 small creatures burrowing tunnels in the space creature’s flesh.
Ellison orders Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saladin Chau to lower the creature’s pain, with Tosk’s help. The shields’ altered modulation makes contact its skin, causing a resonance cascade which then disables its pain receptors. Its pain gone, the gravimetric turbulence ceases, allowing Drake to pilot the ship in peace.
Suddenly Lieutenant Hill warns them from the Hjälmaren that he detected of a cloaked ship out in the outskirts of the Paulson Nebula. Ellison orders them back to Östergötland.
A Norway class’s bottom
With Tosk using sensors to lock on to the burrowing animals, Engineering Officer Ensign Lucas Garcia beams all 3 creatures out into space. They look like 6-armed starfish with segmented limbs & a huge central maw. They squirm & undulate suspended in space in an absolutely alien manner..
Now that the creature’s pain is gone, it is grateful. Hill reports that a Romulan Valdore-type warbird is pursuing them. A disruptor beam destroys the Hjälmaren killing Hill and his crew. The Valdore commander contacts them asking them to surrender the “weapon creature”. The space beast senses Ellison’s grief. It emits a pressurised gravimetric wave that rips the Valdore apart & flings Östergötland towards an asteroid cluster, which Drake is able to safely avoid by braking hard.
Valdore-type vessel
The creature thanks the Östergötland crew via the ship’s comms and disappears into space without revealing more about itself. Meanwhile the crew pick up the Hjälmaren debris. Tosk claims that the shuttle crew died with honour like a Tosk. They also gather the extracted burrowing creatures in crates which are then stored safely in Backpack position between the nacelles, then warp away to safety…
Notes:
- I keep spelling it the “Paulsen Nebula” because I had a secondary school classmate named Eric Paulsen once.
