Star Trek: Emergency Deep

S01E18 “To The Dark Avenue”

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

Stardate: 58592.6 August 13 2381.

The Ascent

After a week’s shore leave, the USS Östergötland has departed from Reykjavík Experimental Shipyards on Earth. She is now in Earth’s orbit, holding station near Earth Spacedock, waiting for their next mission.

Their mission supervisor Admiral Kathryn Janeway calls from her office in San Francisco. Her visage fills up the main viewscreen on the Östergötland‘s bridge. Capt Ellison is in the centre seat. XO Cmdr Drake is at Conn instead of the first officer’s seat. Beside him on Ops is COO Lt Cmdr Galinha. The Science Station is manned by CSO Lt Hippocampus. Lt Libby dos Santos and Lt Latha Reon are in the Tactical and Engineering stations respectively.

Janeway informs the entire bridge that they are to investigate a Kite Runner-class Merchant Marine starship NAR-23017 SS Yongbi Eocheonga at Mandos III approximately seventeen light years away. Apparently the ship’s First Cfficer Édouard O’Neil is a surgically altered Romulan agent. As promised, Starfleet Intelligence has uncovered the plot of a Tal Shiar splinter group known as the Ullho Lonveni led by a radical military officer named Enriov Veresik. The Ullho Lonveni has plans to replace Starfleet personnel using surgically altered agents.

Janeway assigns them the mission to detain the Lonveni agent aboard the Eocheonga and learn more about their subversion plans. Perhaps they would be able to uncover the location of Captain Ellison’s missing sister Cmdr Sally Ellison.

Rapture

En route, Capt Ellison calls for a senior officers’ meeting (with Chief Engineer Latha Reon & Security Chief Libby dos Santos). Ellison is concerned that Lonveni infiltrators might have boarded the Östergötland since their Trychnos mission.

Firstly, Ellison orders Drake to check all new crew members’ background for anomalous information. Drake accesses the data and announces that there has been 12 new transfer from the USS Vikrant off Trychnos and Reykjavík Shipyards on Earth. This includes Lt Cmdr Galinha and Dr Troughton. Galinha is a Tamarian, whose physiology is difficult for a Romulan to emulate. So, Ellison gets Drake to check up on the good doctor first before they can bring him into the fold.

Secondly, Galinha connects their combadges in a secret communications channel. The badges are also set to transmit a secure emergency transmission burst in case they need to signal each other covertly – especially if they uncover Lonveni agents aboard.

Then they device a plan for their arrival in the Mandos system. The plan: Drop out of warp off Mandos III, scan the Eocheonga, convince the ship they have undetectable plasma leaks, offer engineering help, send Security personnel to beam in with the Engineering team, and detain O’Neil.

The Darkness and the Light

Meanwhile, Drake has cleared Troughton and heads to sickbay to brief him. When Troughton is up to speed, he investigates the medical background and transporter scan records of the new crew members. After his check, he confirms that all of them are not Romulans, even with the detailed medical scans based on the two Lonveni infiltrators they caught during their first mission.

In the meantime, Lt Latha modifies all shuttlecraft so they could be remotely controlled by covertly injecting new subroutines into their flight computers directly in the shuttlebay.

Finally at his Ops Station, Galinha taps into the transporter data and copies live transport logs to a secure partitioned memory storage. If anyone uses the transporter pad without permission to beam onto or off the Östergötland, he would have a record of it.

Things are getting pretty paranoid around here.

The Begotten

Three hours later, they drop out of warp in the Mandos system.

They spot the SS Yongbi Eocheonga orbiting Mandos III. Ellison orders Drake to hail them.

Captain Jennifer Lee replies. Drake immediately warns them of their “damage”. He tells them that Östergötland‘s brand new, enhanced, experimental, high-resolution sensors detected multiple plasma leaks on the merchant ship, and offers them help. Lee agrees, but Ellison’s half-Deltan empath ability detects her uneasiness and annoyance. Drake pilots the Östergötland to come alongside the Eocheonga.

Then, Drake, dos Santos and the Engineering and Security teams converge in Transporter Room 1 standing by  for boarding. Meanwhile, Ellison continues the conversation with Capt Lee. She tells him that the Eocheonga is transporting processed ores and machine parts to the Námo colony on Mandos III. Galinha reports that he detects no anomalous signals to and from the planet. Nothing peculiar there.

When Capt Lee starts asking Ellison when the Engineering team would be beaming over, he suddenly has a bad feeling and orders the Transporter Room to abort.

For The Uniform

Suddenly the Eocheonga bolts, impulse engines flaring away from Mandos III. Galinha deftly grabs it with tractor beam a kilometre away. (3 Successes at Difficulty 3 with Control+Security!)

Then a phaser beam lances back at them from the immobilised starship, but misses.

Ellison takes control of tactical systems and looses a phaser shot, (+1 Power, burn 1 Momentum, roll Daring+Security, resulting in  3 successes) which damages her engines and communication gear. (The Challenge dice turn up 11 Stresses, subtracting the 5 Shields results in 1 Breach. From the 5 Effects, 4 is used to achieve another Breach. One Effect triggers Spread, causing a third Breach, disabling the Eocheonga.)

The Yongbi Eocheonga disabled, Drake & Troughton beams with a Security team to her bridge. Lee, the helmsman and another officer takes cover and a firefight occurs. Drake is able to stun Lee. Troughton convinces the helmsman to stand down (all with only a single roll in an Extended Task with a Magnitude of 2 and Work Track of 10).

In Purgatory’s Shadow

Captain Lee is transported to the brig. There, dos Santos and Ellison interrogate her, and learn to their horror that every crew member aboard the Eocheonga is a surgically-altered Romulan! But one is missing. Where is O’Neil?

Lee laughs, he is working to destroy both their ships now. She laughs, “As is our way.”

“Our way?” And then Ellison quickly calls the bridge to warn them of a possible self-destruct gambit.

From the Östergötland bridge, Galinha detects a tricobalt explosive partially masked by the unstable emission from the damaged warp core. A solitary life form is running toward it – presumably to detonate it. With Hippocampus’ help Galinha quickly beams him to sickbay before the life form reaches the tricobalt device.

Already prepared for it, Dr. Troughton hyposprays him in the neck from behind with a tranquiliser when the so-called O’Neil materialised in front of him. The man drops unconscious to the deck.

By Inferno’s Light

Upon disabling the tricobalt bomb, Latha and his Engineering team discover a hidden computer core aboard the Eocheonga. The databanks reveal the location of Federation citizens that the Lonveni has abducted. They now know what their next destination would be.

But a question echoes in Ellison’s mind: Is Sally there?

TO BE CONTINUED

Note:

• Mandos and Námo are the names Doomsman of the Valar who lived in the Undying Lands.