S01 E04: Chronicles of T’Avaya: The Suffering of Others

 

The Vulcan engineer brushed the low hanging leaves out of her way and stepped over the fallen branch. The Bolian engineer followed, her blue skin almost blending in with the scenery. Their two human comrades had gone up ahead and were standing at the bank of a river.

“Look at this,” said Lisa, a bioresearch scientist. “There’s obsidian rock in the river. The colors from the light refraction are sooooo beautiful!”

Regan, an attorney, marveled as well, “The river flows, and my heart grows!”

The Vulcan engineer, T’Avaya, caught up to them. “It is much like my home planet.” Her friends knew that she had grown up on a colony world, not Vulcan itself. “I used to go rafting in a river like this. It was exhilarating, to say the least.”

The Bolian, Luruwa, exclaimed loudly, “Oh. Yeah. We should go rafting some time. Everyone should see this. The red river is like the blood rushing to my heart. I just wanna jump in!”

Regan and Lisa laughed at Luruwa, the excitable one of the group. The four women had several hiking holodeck programs they enjoyed. This one was a forest on Revendar 3. It was one of the more colorful planets, with its red water and blue shrubbery. They continued their hike as they walked along the bank, and then up a steep hill, and then down a steep ravine.

 

Norab stuck the magnetic scrambler to the door. He pushed a button, and the door opened. Easy as stealing from a mastag, the Lurian thought to himself. He removed the scrambler and walked into the office. He sat behind the computer terminal. He turned it on and inserted a codeword bypass disc and started searching. He knew the chief engineer would not return to her office for at least an hour. Let’s see, he thought. He kept searching, and searching,  and searching, and . . . Ah, Blashtat! He said out loud. Norab had found what he was looking for.

 

Chief Engineer’s Log. Stardate 45121.2. Doctor T’Avaya reporting. Space Station Tyrellia’s communications array has just intercepted a message from Romulan space, on the other side of the Neutral Zone. The message was received by a Lurian trader named Norab. The Lurian is currently in interrogation with Security Guard Malaka, a Vorta female who defected during the Dominion War, and is now part of the station’s security team. Station Director Tab Nilo has ordered more security at the station’s most sensitive locations. Because Tyrellia is a civilian station, he does not want to alarm any of the station’s many guests. Starfleet Command has been alerted to the situation.

 

T’Avaya sat in her office drinking coffee as she looked over the records from the station’s external communications array. The signal that was picked up was weak. It was sent in a low band phasing spatial burst, instead of subspace. The station’s comm array was the only comm unit in the Federation that would have been able to pick up the signal without actively looking for such a low band. As she looked through more logs from the comm array, she noticed something odd. Her computer showed that it had been accessed during the time she was on the holodeck with her friends. Someone had used her terminal in her absence.

 The door to the office chimed. T’Avaya said, “Come.” The Chief of Security, a Zakdorn named Vedarem, walked in. Zakdorns were known for being great military strategists, but sometimes they held other positions within the United Federation of Planets. Vedarem had done very well as the station’s security chief. He was carrying two objects into the engineer’s office-- one small, and one rather large. The small object, T’Avaya thought, must have been the Lurian’s communicator. She asked him what the larger object was. He told her it was found by Security Guard Malaka on Norab’s freighter ship. He wanted T’Avaya to examine both objects and let him know her findings. She agreed to examine them. Norab was now in the station’s holding cell. Vedarem also told the Vulcan he would like her to examine the Lurian’s ship to see if she could find anything the security team might have overlooked. She told him she would visit the ship.

Then the Vulcan told him what she had just found on her computer terminal. Someone had  accessed her computer. He used his tricorder to scan her computer for traces of non-Vulcan DNA. It picked up trace amounts of Vorta DNA. Malaka was the only Vorta on the station. T’Avaya said she had not known of any time recently that Malaka had been in her office. Vedarem said he would look into it. Both of them had known Malaka for several years and had come to trust her.

After Vedarem left, T’Avaya took the items to her engineering lab. She took apart the small communicator. She didn’t see anything noteworthy. She removed the data chip from inside and inserted it into her computer terminal. She downloaded the contents of the chip. There were two recent transmissions: the one from Romulan space that the comm array had already picked up, and one that was sent from a location on the station to another location elsewhere on the station. The Vulcan narrowed the location field search and cross referenced with the station communications that had been recorded by the array. The transmission had been received in one of the visitor quarters on the station. She recorded the room number for the quarters and immediately messaged it to Security Chief Vedarem. Next, she started examining the object found on Norab’s ship. She determined that it was a subspace field modulator. It could possibly be used to scramble sensor readings to make a ship difficult to detect. The engineer decided it was time to see Norab’s ship.

 

T’Avaya found where the Lurian’s freighter had been docked. It was under guard, as ordered by Chief Vedarem. The guards let her inside. The freighter ship was small, except for a large empty cargo bay. It was a Federation issue Type-AK class freighter, with a few random modifications. She ran a tricorder scan. There were no unusual radiation or energy readings.  She found the engine room and saw a standard warp 2 engine. She went to the cockpit. Her scans found nothing out of the ordinary. She turned on the communications console. She looked at the screen and saw the comm logs. It showed the ship had been cleared to land at several other docking ports in the last month. As she scrolled through the logs, she saw some encoded computer data that wasn’t part of the log.  She downloaded the code to a data rod and took it back to her engineering lab.

Later, T’Avaya inserted the data rod into her diagnostic computer. Her computer indicated that it would take several hours to comb through the data. She left it running. Then, she was called to a meeting by the station director.

She sat at the meeting room table and waited patiently for Director Tab Nilo to begin. Nilo was at the head of the table, and she sat to his left. To Nilo’s right was Security Chief Vedarem. To T’Avaya’s left was the Starfleet Intelligence officer assigned to the station, Lt. Gemma Albrecht. Nilo spoke up, “Our Lurian visitor, Norab, received a transmission from inside Romulan space. The Romulans have been very quiet since the end of the Dominion War one year ago. Gemma, do you know of any other Romulan activity in the sector?”

The blue-eyed human intelligence officer answered, “No. Intelligence reports have not noted any recent activity from the Romulans. They have gone silent since the Dominion War ended. It could have been some kind of stray comm signal. But our Lurian friend DOES seem to be hiding something.” She continued, “Because of the station’s close proximity to the Neutral Zone, the Romulans think we built the comm array to spy on them. But we can’t be implicated in this case because THEY are the ones who sent a transmission to someone on this station.”

Then Vedarem spoke up, “Norab said he was just stopping here to pick up a shipment of diastux to take to the Corswell system. He said he’s never had any contact with Romulans, and that the transmission we traced to him must have been a stray blip.”

The Trill director asked T’Avaya what she found when examining Norab’s personal communicator. She told him it was standard issue and that she found nothing unusual. She also mentioned that the other object Vedarem had given her was a subspace field modulator.”

“Something to scramble sensor readings,” Vedarem said. He made the common Zakdorn humming sound, “Hmm, mm.”

“So you didn’t find that he was smuggling anything when you searched his ship?” Nilo asked Vedarem.

“Initial scans and visual search turned up nothing, but we are still looking,” Vedarem stated.

T’Avaya told them about the encoded data she found in the ship’s comm logs and that she had her computer working to decrypt the data. They all looked at her. That was an interesting find, indeed. “Any idea what the code is?” Nilo queried. No one answered immediately.

Lt. Albrecht said, “It could be an encrypted message from the Romulans.”

Nilo said, “Let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet. What did you find out about the second transmission T’Avaya found on his communicator?”

“We traced it to the quarters of a human named Louis Grasso,” the Zakdorn chief said. “He’s from colony planet Hodu 4 in this sector. He’s a farmer who just checked in yesterday. My people are questioning him as we speak.”

“And what are our orders from Starfleet Command, Gemma?” Nilo said as he looked firmly at the officer.

She replied, “To keep investigating and await further orders. We are not to make any aggressive moves toward the Neutral Zone.”

“Mmm, mm. We can’t hold Norab for long without solid evidence,” Vedarem said.

“Then let’s get to work on getting that evidence,” Nilo ordered.

The director dismissed everyone back to their duties.

 

Malaka sat at the table across from Louis Grasso. She had been working in station security for three years now and had learned to read some human expressions. She knew this human looked nervous about something. She questioned him about why he was on the station and what his connection was to Norab. He told her he had brought a shipment of diastux, a wheat that he harvested on his farm on Hodu 4. Norab had found a buyer for the diastux. Station Tyrellia was a common place for commerce and trade, so that made sense. She asked how he had met Norab. Grasso said Norab had brought a shipment of foodstuffs to his planet.  When the Vorta asked Grasso where Norab was taking the wheat, he squirmed and said he didn’t know; he didn’t care as long as he was selling it. Malaka knew that not many species ate diastux food products. Most humans found it indigestible, and many other species found it unpalatable. She asked him why he grew such an unpopular wheat. He said it was one of the few things he could grow on his land. He grew other crops, but diastux seemed to be the one that his soil was most compatible with. Malaka knew that many of the colonies in Tyrellia sector, like Hodu, wanted to be self-sustaining. Part of that included growing their own foodstuffs instead of depending on food replicators. To humans, part of the satisfaction of starting a colony was seeing how much they could get from the native land. She dismissed Grasso, but told him to not leave the station until further notice.

 

T’Avaya went back to her lab and saw that the computer was still busy decrypting the data from Norab’s ship. Just then, she was alerted by Chief Vedarem that another phasing spatial transmission from Romulan space had been detected. The exact point of origin could not be determined. The transmission had ended, and he could not determine whom it was being sent to. Vedarem surmised that because Norab’s communicator had been taken apart, there was no receiver for the transmission, so it dissipated.  He asked if there was any way she could increase the power of the array in case another transmission was received. T’Avaya considered it. The array was already working at maximum efficiency, and -- even though the Romulans believed otherwise-- it had not been intended to receive transmissions from the Romulans. But she did know a way to temporarily increase the power.

T’Avaya added Nilo to the call so she could let both Nilo and Vedarem know her plan. In order to fill Vedarem’s request for more power to the array, she wanted to create a gravimetric distortion around the array. She assured them the distortion would be small enough that it would not endanger any beings or ships in the vicinity. They both expressed concerns for any unknowns that might happen. She assured them she could control the size and intensity of the distortion. And she would also install a cutoff for it that she could activate at any time. They agreed to let her do it, since it would only be temporary, and they needed something to be done quickly.

She went to the shuttle bay to take the shuttlecraft Kal-toh Xi over to the array, since beaming over was sometimes hazardous due to the combination of gravity waves in the area and the station’s graviton emissions. As she was about to board the shuttlecraft, she saw a human male staring at her. Or rather, he was staring at the Kal-toh Xi.

“Can I help you?” she said to the human.

“I was just looking at your shuttle.” He saw the name on the side. “Why is it named after a Vulcan game?”

T’Avaya had wondered the same thing when she was first assigned to the station. She told the human that Tyrellia’s docking manager went to an annual gaming festival. He named each of the shuttles and runabouts after a game that was played at the festival, and a Greek letter that corresponded to the order of the tournaments for each game.

“That’s funny,” he said. “Your docking manager must be a lot of fun.”

“He often has private gaming parties on the station.”

“Oh. I wish I could go to parties. It seems all I do is work on my farm.”

“You are a farmer?”

“Yeah. Name’s Louis Grasso,” the human said, offering the Vulcan salute instead of a handshake. She recognized his name. He was the one Norab had contacted on the station. She saluted him back.

“T’Avaya”, she said. “My father was a farmer.”

“Really? I don’t see many farmers who aren’t from my home planet.”

They spoke for a few minutes. He said he was in the shuttle bay to check on his shipment of wheat, diastux, that was still in his freighter craft. He was supposed to transfer it to Norab, but now that Norab was in custody, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

 He asked her more about her father. She said he was still on her home world, the frontier colony planet Sa’idi III. She had always been close to him, though they hadn’t spoken in over a year. He asked about her mother, and she said her mother had died. She found that Grasso was very well-educated. He spoke four languages. He had some engineering skills, as he had learned to repair and maintain much of his farm equipment. She said farmers were well-respected where she was from. And the station’s five-star chef preferred farm-fresh foods instead of replicated; replicated food was never as flavorful as natural. Grasso agreed with her on that. The pleasant conversation ended as T’Avaya excused herself to complete her next task.

 

Malaka brought Norab back to the interrogation room to question him about the code that was found in his ship’s logs. She had looked at his criminal records. He had been convicted and served time for a few petty crimes. She also saw in his records that he had lost his family in the Dominion War. Malaka -- being a Vorta-- was a clone, and had no family. But she had learned the importance of families to most humanoid species. She often wondered what it would be like to have that sense of belonging and unconditional acceptance that families seemed to have.

 Norab claimed he knew nothing about any code in his ship’s logs. Malaka wished she could use the more extreme and effective Dominion tactics of questioning, but she respected the ways of the United Federation of Planets. Now that she was their citizen, she owed them her freedom, and she would respect their ways.

She asked him about his communication with Louis Grasso. He repeated his story from earlier, that he was picking up a shipment of wheat from Grasso to take to the Corswell system. She asked him about the subspace field modulator that was found on his ship. Again, he claimed to not know anything about it. Lurians were known for talking a lot. This one didn’t seem to have much to say. Just then, Security Chief Vedarem came into the room. The large Zakdorn thought maybe he would be more intimidating to the Lurian.

Vedarem bluffed, “We know you had the modulator because you were taking an illegal shipment into Romulan space.”

Norab said calmly, “I don’t have a modulator. Your Vorta here probably planted it on my ship.”

Malaka gave Vedarem a slight smile. She had worked for him long enough that he trusted her. She had defected from the Dominion because she could not longer stand their treachery and lust for power. They would consider her defective. Perhaps she was. But she knew this Lurian was lying.

 

The control center of the communications array was unoccupied most of the time. T’Avaya could handle most of the maintenance from the station. But this enhancement she could only do from inside the array’s control center. The array was constructed to make communication through gravity waves more effective. Tyrellia sector had been bombarded with class 3 gravitational waves ever since a star in Sector 2152B went supernova three years ago. The waves did not affect travel through the sector, since most ships were able to compensate.

               T’Avaya rerouted the main power coupling and installed a shunt that would create a small gravimetric distortion around the array. The distortion would be too small to be a danger, but it would be just the right size to increase the array’s effectiveness. The array had been built to process gravity waves, so it was well equipped to handle a single, small gravimetric distortion. With the increase in effectiveness, it should be able to detect any more transmissions to or from Romulan space with greater accuracy as to the points of origin and destination. She could only leave the modification in place for a few hours. After that, the gravimetric distortion would start to increase in size. She installed a self-terminating program for the shunt that would activate after an allotted time, and she also had a failsafe power termination code she could send directly from the station, if she needed to use it.

 

               Back on the station, T’Avaya saw that the modification on the array was working well. She monitored the gravimetric distortion and saw that it was within acceptable parameters. She let the station Director and the Security Chief know. Her computer would let her know if there was a change in the readings. The computer was also still working on the encrypted code from Norab’s ship.

               While the Vulcan engineer was waiting in her lab, she decided to do her yoga practice. Her mother, a somewhat unorthodox Vulcan, had taught her the earth practice of yoga, instead of the more traditional Vulcan relaxation practice of simple meditation. T’Avaya preferred yoga as it kept her body strong and limber while also clearing and centering her mind.

 

               Louis Grasso was told he had VIP quarters. Of course, he knew that all the quarters on Station Tyrellia were considered VIP quarters. He stepped through the side door of the living room and into a small room with two chairs, a table, a couch, and a railing. He sat on the couch. Beyond the railing, he had a full view of the space outside the station. It was a holoprogram that he could change to any view he wanted, but he preferred the open space. He recognized the constellations. There’s Masraya, he thought, and Cabelkon. He loved having a “balcony” in his room on the station. He might as well enjoy the free time while he was away from home. As he sat back to enjoy the view, he heard his door chime. He got up and went back through the living room to the door. It was a blonde human woman he had never seen before.

               “Hello. Louis Grasso? I’m Lisa. T’Avaya sent me.”

               Then Louis remembered. “Oh, yes. Come in. She told me you were doing some genome research.”

               Lisa was working on a genome that would make some foods more digestible for people who did not have the sufficient enzymes to digest certain nutrients. T’Avaya had asked her if she would test the genome on Grasso’s diastux. Louis handed her a vial. “Here’s a sample for you to test. Sure hope it works.”

               Lisa smiled and said, “I’m happy to help.”

               She started to leave, and Louis said, “Hey, uh, that T’Avaya. She is… a really nice Vulcan.”

               Lisa tilted her head and replied, “Yes. She is nice, isn’t she?”

               “Yeah. Nice. And pretty. And smart too.”

               Lisa smiled and said, “And she’s the only Vulcan I know who only uses the word ‘logical’ once a week, instead of once every ten minutes.”

               They both laughed.

 

During T’Avaya’s yoga session, her friend Lisa from the station’s science department called. She pulled up her vid screen. Lisa had called to check on her, because she knew the Vulcan had been working long hours. T’Avaya said she was still working on the investigation. Lisa said she would call back later, but T’Avaya said she was free to talk for a few minutes. Lisa remarked that she had just picked up a wheat sample from Louis, and that Louis had mentioned her by name. T’Avaya raised an eyebrow. “What did he say about me?”

“That you were nice and pretty and smart.”

Her parents had not set her up with a mate, as many Vulcan parents did for their offspring. Louis seemed intelligent and charming. And even handsome for a human.  But T’Avaya was not interested in a romantic relationship. Her friends had tried to set her up before, quite unsuccessfully.

T’Avaya said, “We had a nice conversation. But that’s all it was.”

“Sure.” Lisa knew her friend too well to push it.

 They spoke a few more minutes, and then Lisa signed off and the Vulcan went back to her yoga. Then, T’Avaya’s computer beeped. She walked over to the terminal. It had finished decrypting the code. She looked at her computer screen, then immediately called Director Nilo.

Nilo came to T’Avaya’s engineering lab and looked at her computer screen. “It looks like schematics,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” T’Avaya replied. It was schematics for the communications array. Nilo asked how Norab could have gotten this. She remembered the unauthorized access to her computer. She told Nilo about it and the fact that Vedarem had not yet found the culprit.

T’Avaya’s computer beeped again. This time, it was alerting her that the array had just picked up two more spatial burst transmissions, nine point eight seconds apart. Instead of coming FROM Romulan space,  the first transmission was sent from Norab’s ship and was directed TO Romulan space. It must have been an automated transmission. With Norab in custody, no one was on his ship. The second transmission came from within Romulan space. She checked the readings from the array. With the help of the gravimetric distortion, she found that the transmission from Norab’s ship was sent to a planet in Romulan space called Psi D. Federation records showed it was uninhabited. Psi D was also the source of the follow up transmission that was just received. From the enhanced strength of the array, she could read the contents of the messages. They were in Romulan, which her computer quickly translated. The message to Psi D said, “I have acquired it.” The reply message that came from Psi D, unlike previous messages, was on a hard-to-read low epsilon e-band. It was a set of coordinates. She looked up the coordinates. It was a location deep inside Romulan space. They must have a ship at those coordinates that was waiting to receive the encoded schematics. 

Her thoughts were interrupted when the floor beneath her started to shake. She and Nilo almost fell. Nilo said, “What the hell was that?”

He then called security and asked if sensors showed what had caused the shaking. Vedarem ran a sensor scan and said he detected a class 2 gravimetric distortion coming from the array. It had caused the entire station to tremble. The Vulcan engineer knew the distortion should not be that strong. Somehow the distortion had enlarged. She hit the program failsafe to dissipate the gravimetric distortion. But her readings showed it had no effect. She quickly ran a diagnostic. She could not find a reason the failsafe didn’t work. Then she traced it back to the array’s matrix. She saw something strange there. That transmission from Norab’s ship had been an automated transmission that was sent on a Theta band. That wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the Theta band caused the gravimetric distortion to suddenly increase. She knew then that the distortion could not be terminated from the station. She estimated she had barely enough time to take the Kal-toh Xi back to the array. T’Avaya left her engineering lab and raced to the shuttle bay.

Once she was on the array, the Vulcan engineer deftly rerouted the main power coupling back to the main power source and reset the program. Then she removed the shunt and adjusted the controls back to the default settings. She checked the readings and saw that the gravimetric distortion was slowly beginning to shrink. The engineer let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding. She gradually decreased the flow to the power relays to keep the distortion field steady. She touched the panel to decrease the flow a little more. And a little more. And a little more. After a few minutes, the gravimetric distortion was gone. She called Vedarem on the station and asked for the status. He told her everything was secure. Sensors no longer detected the distortion and the station was no longer in danger.

 

Malaka once again questioned Norab in the interrogation room.

“We found this hidden in your station quarters,” she said to him as she held up a small device. It was a genetic marking tool that had been set for Vorta DNA. He had used it to leave Vorta DNA on T’Avaya’s computer. “We also found the magnetic scrambler you used to break into T’Avaya’s office. You stole the schematics for the comm array and tried to frame ME for it. And you pretended to want Grasso’s wheat so you would have an excuse to come to the station.”

Norab kept his eyes down. There was no more use in denying anything. She told him they had intercepted the message from Romulan space and gotten the coordinates where he was to transmit the encrypted data schematics. When asked how he came to be involved with the Romulans, he stated he had come into contact with them during the Dominion War when the Romulans were allied with the Federation. He had met a Romulan who was sympathetic to him losing his family to the Jem’Hadar. Norab thought the Federation was weak. He hated it for allowing his family to die, and now, for having given this enemy Vorta a home.

Malaka asked Norab why he had used a Theta band transmission and not a standard frequency transmission. He stated that the Theta band had a tighter beam and a longer range. He had no way of knowing that it would put the station in physical danger. She asked him where he got all the devices he had used: the data encryption device, the magnetic scrambler, the genetic marking tool, the codeword bypass, and the field modulator. He said he had obtained them from different underground sources over many years. All of his devices had been confiscated. She knew the devices had helped him with his petty thievery in the past. But now he had upped his criminal activity to selling to the enemy, i.e., treason. He would be going to prison for a very long time.

 

Engineer’s Log. Supplemental. The Lurian, Norab, has been arrested and is in prison awaiting trial. I am aware that he lost his family in the Dominion War. That is regrettable. I only hope that he will someday find peace. Starfleet Intelligence has determined that this incident may be a prelude to more Romulan activity. The Federation has increased the security around the station and the array.

Louis Grasso felt dejected upon finding out Norab never actually had a buyer for his wheat. However, Lisa Kingsley, a scientist in the station’s research department, has done promising research on food genomes that may help. The station’s chef has offered to take the rest of the diastux that Louis brought to the station. He wants to try new recipes with it. He said he enjoys a challenge.

I have been pondering whether it was a good idea to instill a gravimetric distortion around the array. It allowed us greater clarity with communications, but at the same time, the Theta band transmission, combined with the distortion, put the station and all the lives aboard it in grave jeopardy. I still do not believe there was another solution at the time, but I think I will be more cautious in the future. This is a civilian station, and the residents’ and visitors’ lives should not be put in danger. As the Vulcan philosopher T’Mee’an said, “You may have deep motivations for your actions, but you should not cause the suffering of others.” This is something Norab does not understand.

As for now, I have agreed to join Louis for his final dinner on the station before he returns home to Hodu 4. I would be interested to learn if he likes to talk about philosophy.

 

 -by the Honorable Kavura

 

Thank you for reading my Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log mission report. Captain’s Log is a solo roleplaying game by Modiphius Entertainment.