Star Trek: Emergency Deep

S01E17 “Shades of Green”

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 Cmdr Galinha, Tamarian Chief Operations Officer (Ivan)
• Lt JG John Hippocampus, Beluga whale Chief Science Officer (Razz)

Stardate: 58592.6 (5th August 2381)

1

While the USS Östergötland is undergoing maintenance and overhaul at Reykjavík Experimental Shipyards on Earth, the senior crew is at the Starfleet Administration Building in Tycho City on Luna. They had just went through an award ceremony on the moon, bestowed by their mission supervisor Admiral Kathryn Janeway. After the ceremony, the crew split up with Östergötland CO Captain Ellison hailing a hovercab for some soul searching over the skyline of Tycho City by himself. He disappears into the night.

2

At the Tycho City  Zoo, a trio of adorable white creatures were flopping towards COO Lt Cmdr Galinha & CSO Lt Hippocampus who are trapped at the end of the pier that looks out into the vast Lake Armstrong. They are warned by XO Cmdr Drake who appeared out of the shadows. Hippocampus wondered how the animals labelled “LETHAL CREATURES” got loose!

Galinha remembers the Romulan ale keg on Hippocampus’ back. He grabs it and hurls it at the creatures. They rush for it, allowing Galinha to slip by, riding  on Hippocampus’ back to safety.

Drake takes the time to call Tycho City Security for immediate assistance, before Galinha and Hippocampus reach him. When Drake mentions the white creature, the dispatch panics and tells them to get out of there quickly. The trio of creatures swarm the keg, then bite it with razor-sharp fangs. Then the creatures noisily suck the Romulan ale out of the keg, slowing compressing!

Drake too gets on Hippocampus and rides him out of there. The beluga says, “Hey! I’m on a gravsled, not a moped!”

A pair of Zoo Security arrive before Tycho City Security arrives. The security team informs them that these creatures are mutated noopsies, not the dangerous bone sucking moopsies. The moopsies are evidently still safely in their enclosures. Noopsies however had mutated to somehow have an insatiable appetite for Romulan ale instead of bones.

3

Meanwhile, the Östergötland‘s CMO Dr. Troughton is with his old friend and former colleague, the xenobotanist Dr Bash Horzan at the adjacent Aldrin Research Facility.

While showing Dr. Troughton an alien flora, the plant creature dubbed the cephaloflower breaks through the open transparent aluminum cage with its vines. The small bulbous life form with dozens of vines is not only growing, but lashing out for no reason. The growing vines strikes load bearing structures on the wall of the xenobotany lab. The building shakes, and the creature drops into the crumbling hole in the floor.

After disarming the EMP device that fell from the Weapons lab in Level 4 into Level 3, Troughton loses his balance and falls into the hole. He tries to grab some cables but missed (while twice failing the Daring+Security rolls.) He fell right on top of the creature now on Level 2. The fall injures him (by 5 Stresses incurring an Injury) as he strikes some of the exposed girders. He is now lying down on top of the creature which is still trying to dig through the floor.

4

“I don’t think Tycho City’s coming,” announced one of the Zoo Security.  “Something’s going on at the Aldrin Building. Some sort of alien plant got loose!”

Galinha suggests, “Let’s go render assistance.”

They all get back on top of Hippocampus and start to bobsled back to Aldrin. Hippocampus asks, “Wait. Can’t we just beam there?”

Of course they could. They forgot. Hippocampus cybernetically uses his combadge to call the Transport Officer. “We can’t transport you to Aldrin, the building is unstable. We can transport you to the next building, the Starfleet Admin Building.

They materialise in the Transporter Room in the ground floor of the Starfleet Admin Building. The transporter chief tells them, “Be careful. Something is happening next door.” They rush out to the street and see the Aldrin building rocking and shaking, debris falling from it.

5

Troughton is still on top of the cephaloflower with its undulating bulbous body. He realises that the creature is about break through the 1st Level floor.

Dr. Horzan asks, through the hole above from 2 levels up, “Are you alright?”

“Just peachy,” Troughton mutters. He looks around for a safe place to leap before the creature falls through. The doctor spots a cantilevered slab which could take his weight (by rolling Insight+Engineering). He immediately leaps to  before the cephaloflower falls even further, through Level 1 and smashes onto the Concourse on the ground floor.

From his vantage point, Troughton watches the creature now three times its previous size dig even more at the floor beneath. After forgetting he has a combadge for a second, Troughton taps on it and  informs Security that the creature is trying to escape through the flooring.

6

Starfleet Security converges and  then defers to Drake, who is the highest ranking officer there. (Extended Task begins here with Magnitude 3 to neutralise the cephaloflower threat.) They begin to plan. The first step is to contain it with a shield bubble, then transport it to the zoo. Dr Horzan still has no real data about it.

A security officer gives Drake his PADD. Drake raises a shield bubble (using Daring+Security, achieves one out of three Breakthroughs required to succeed the Extended Task) around the cephaloflower, lowering the stresses on the building. Hippocampus asks, “What was the stimulus that caused it to grow?”

Galinha suggests Hippocampus to look through the building’s sensor logs. (With a successful Insight+Science roll, one more Breakthrough is achieved.) Hippocampus discovers the creature went berserk exactly when a polaric reactor was activated in the Radiology Lab in Sublevel 1. The creature appears to be drawn to the emissions of  this reactor!

Galinha asks, “Can we initiate a shutdown?” Hippocampus identifies the Radiology Lab supervisor Dr Golibe Jurgens and calls him. Dr Jurgens has left the building and evacuated the lab — without turning off the polaric reactor. Hippocampus & Galinha then bobsled down to the basement (successfully rolling Control+Conn)  and burst into the lab. They see the active polaric reactor humming ominously: two metallic spheres joined together by a metallic structure. The ceiling is cracking & would collapse soon.

7

They find the reactor control panel. While Hippocampus calls Dr Jurgens to ask him for the shut down procedure, Galinha uses his engineering insight to figure out the complex controls. (He rolls Insight+Engineering, uses his Determination and his “Thelma and Louise, At The Grand Canyon” Value, “Power System” Focus, and spends 3 Momentum to buy 2 more d20s. With the Momentum generated added to the Challenge Dice roll, he gets two Breakthroughs.) After several heartbeats, the Galinha succeeds in shutting down the polaric reactor.

The creature stands down and begins to shrink in size. The security officer near Drake and Troughton is impressed and asks which ship are they serving aboard.

Drake proudly announces, “We’re from the USS Östergötland.”

City security & Aldrin personnel take over the disaster zone. Meanwhile Dr Horzan treats Troughton’s falling injuries. As they leave the building, Capt Ellison arrives via hovercab, just in time to regroup with his crew.

8

They are greeted by Admiral Janeway, who is leaving the Admin Building. She sincerely hopes they get some rest before the Östergötland is scheduled in a week’s time to cast off to the final frontier once again.

TO BE CONTINUED

Notes:

• Wait. Aren’t polaric devices outlawed?
• There were — several — Cool Runnings jokes.