S03 E04: Chronicles of T'Avaya: The Chu Chu Dance of Death

 

S03 E04: Chronicles of T'Avaya: The Chu Chu Dance of Death

(This adventure was inspired by “To Chu or Not to Chu” from the Star Trek Adventures Lower Decks Sourcebook and “The Orions: The Book of Common Knowledge” from FASA RPG.)

Mission log. Stardate 45136.3. Agent T’Avaya reporting. Starfleet Intelligence has received reports that Reeve Deacon, a suspected assassin for the Orion Syndicate, is on Starbase Sirius for his next target. My team has been ordered to the starbase to find and capture him before he kills his mark. We do not yet know who his target is.

Starbase Sirius is a civilian starbase within Federation territory. It was set up to monitor trade routes along the sector and to serve as a hub for merchants.

 

          Miadere watched the show with intense interest. Formal theatrical Chu Chu dancing required a level of skill that few had mastered. As an Orion/Deltan hybrid, she had always loved dancing and watching dance troupes. This performance was so wildly original, she thought. All the dancers were athletic, hyper flexible, and charismatic. And the music was over the top energetic with its dramatic orchestral feel and its syncopations. Orion dance troupes were rare, as most Orion dancers stuck to performing solo or in small groups. It was even more rare to see an Orion dance troupe on a starbase. Miadere gleefully observed how every leap, every pirouette, and every pose was done to perfection.

          The audience cheered for each dance number. At the end of the show, the dancers stood in a row and took their bows. Miadere stood up and applauded and cheered with the audience.

The thunderous applause almost drowned out the single, sudden sound of a projectile weapon that was fired at the stage. One of the Orion dancers fell to the floor. There was screaming from the audience and several of the dancers.

          Miadere tried to run up to the stage, but there were too many people screaming frantically in the isles. She saw the dancers on the stage crowd around the one who had fallen. The stagehands had also run onto the stage. She looked around for the shooter. There was no way she could identify anyone in all the chaos. She knew the shooter had to be Reeve Deacon, the assassin her team had been sent to stop. They hadn’t stopped the assassination attempt, but they would still find Deacon, one way or another.

 

          One hour later, the theater had been evacuated and T’Avaya and Miadere (both from Starfleet Intelligence) were there to interview the starbase commander, Governor Gerard. He told them the dancer who was shot was named Famara. She had been a part of the dance troupe for one year, and that was all he knew about her. He said he had been alerted before the show that an assassin may be aboard the station, and he had taken some security precautions. One of them being that there was an invisible force field between the stage and the audience. The force field would have deflected most energy and projectile weapons. The assassin had used a photonic booster weapon, which unfortunately had penetrated the force field, but the force field caused a slight shift in trajectory--so the projectile hit Famara in the shoulder where it did only minor damage. Two of the dancers were also there and told the agents they did not see anything from the stage as far as who fired the shot. Gerard said the show’s director had gone to the starbase hospital to check on Famara. The dancers also said they were concerned about Famara. She had always been very friendly and approachable, and they had no idea why someone would try to kill her. Gerard said he was cancelling all shows on the starbase until further notice. His Chief of Security would be conducting an investigation. T’Avaya had already spoken with the Chief of Security and told him that her three-person Starfleet Intelligence team would be working with him to find the assassin.

         

          Famara opened her eyes. Her mind was still foggy. A Bolian nurse was standing beside her medical diagnostic bed. “Just take it easy,” the nurse said. “You’ll be alright.” Famara looked up and saw her show director, Drolin. He told her he was glad there was no permanent damage. They exchanged a few words as Miadere, from Starfleet Intelligence, watched. Drolin left and Miadere introduced herself to Famara. The intelligence operative tried to be considerate and ask Famara too many questions. She said she had not noticed anything unusual.

The doctor treating Famara mentioned that she noticed a mark that had been removed from her upper right arm. She showed Miadere a computer representation of what the mark had looked like. Miadere saw the shape of the mark. The upper part represented the Orion Syndicate. The bottom part, Miadere knew, could only represent a powerful Orion clan that was part of the syndicate.

She recorded an image of the symbol and sent it to Cassandra to research in the SI database. Cassandra was still on their ship, the Shavokh, monitoring coded transmissions. Cassandra said the symbol was the mark of the Raizred Clan, one of the families of the Orion Syndicate. The clan owns a casino on Beta Orion. There was no record connecting Famara to the clan, but Orion records were sketchy, especially where the Syndicate was concerned. SI did know that it was common for some clans to put their mark on their employees and slaves.

 

          Emac examined the warp tubules. It was a very short supply. This station had not been stocked to supply Starfleet ships. He wasn’t going to find anything in this shop, so he kept strolling down Merchants Way. He was walking past an Andorian dress shop when he saw her; a beautiful, graceful Vulcan with piercing eyes. “T’Avaya,” he said softly. She had noticed him at the same time he noticed her. “Emac,” she said, “what are you doing here?” She had checked the ship manifest, and the USS Prophecy was not docked at the station.

          He laughed and said, “it’s you alright! I’m here on leave to see the Chu Chu Show. How about you?”

          “I didn’t know you were interested in dancing.”

          Obviously, T’Avaya didn’t know her former lover as well as she thought she did.

          “Call it a new cultural study,” he said. Emac was an Orion Starfleet officer. In fact, he was chief engineer of the USS Prophecy.

          When she had left Station Tyrellia two years ago, T’Avaya had told him she was going to work for Starfleet Intelligence as a research assistant, not as an intelligence field operative. They took a few minutes to make small talk. Then he asked if she’d heard about the Orion who was shot. She replied yes, as everyone on the starbase had been talking about it. She saw no harm in telling him she was there on behalf of SI to investigate the murder attempt. This, unlike some of her missions, was not a covert op.

          Emac said he happened to meet Famara the day before she was shot. She had been in one of the starbase’s electronics stores searching for an audio amplifier. He had struck up a conversation and found that she had quite a bit of technical knowledge. T’Avaya asked what kind of technical knowledge. Emac paused and then had a little twinkle in his eyes. He thought T’Avaya was jealous. She was only trying to gain more information on Famara. She would let Emac think what he wanted. He told the Vulcan how Famara seemed to know how a gaming headset device and an audio amplifier worked. Not that Emac was surprised. Being Orion himself, he knew that most Orion women were much more intelligent than they let on. And Orion slave owners, if it suited them, would send their slaves to specialty schools; so it wasn’t unheard of to become a willing slave just to get extra training. And then the slave could get a job and buy their way out of slavery. It had been a long standing practice for Orions that most outsiders knew nothing about. T’Avaya had checked the Starfleet Intelligence database on Famara and found very little, but Orions were not a race that traditionally kept traceable records.

          Emac and T’Avaya made a dinner date for later that night. Then the Vulcan excused herself.

 

          Deacon sent an encrypted communique to the one person who still remained free in the Raizred clan. He reported that the first attempt at killing Zotali had failed. He hated reporting a failure. He was a professional. He would try again. He knew that there was now even more security on the station. But again, he was a professional. He knew what to do.

          He activated his holo mask. It gave him the appearance of a Bajoran face; a face that had completely different features than his natural human face. He had been searching for Zotali--or Famara—ever since her disappearance one year ago, and knew that she was here, and currently still in the starbase hospital. He could take this chance to search her residence for the Trovarg stone. She had to have it in her possession, Deacon was told, because the Raizreds didn’t have it, and neither did the authorities.

          Deacon had only been able to find Famara because she made the mistake of once contacting her former boyfriend’s family. Deacon had been tracking all transmissions to and from Branit’s family. He had traced the source of the call to this starbase. And, unknown to Famara, she had a short-range tracking unit embedded in her skin, which allowed him to distinguish her from the other Orions on the starbase.

          He peaked around the corner of intersecting hallways and saw a guard outside the door to her residence. Pretty lax security, he thought. All he had to do was throw a smoke grenade to knock out the guard, and he could easily break into the residence.

          Once inside, he walked around and scanned for the Trovarg stone. He didn’t find it. Damn. Well, the stone had been a personal objective only. His primary mission was still the assassination. He left and decided on his next move. Famara was still in the hospital. That was where she would meet her end.

 

          Miadere and T’Avaya went back to the hospital to speak with Famara. T’Avaya asked her how she knew Chu Chu dancing so well, along with her technical knowledge. Famara gave the evasive answer that it was common for Orion slaves to be trained in different areas. Miadere asked where she had been a slave. She said her previous owner was a scavenger in the Tanosd sector. They asked her if she knew anything about the Raizred clan. She flinched and did not speak. Miadere told her it was important to tell them; it was the only way they could save her from another murder attempt. So Famara reluctantly told her story:

 

Zotali worked in a casino owned by a the Raizred Clan, a powerful Orion house in the Orion Syndicate. She was their meta systems and control engineer. She was in charge of maintaining the Dabo machine, roulette wheel, slot machines, and any other technical devices the Raizreds had. One of their casino employees discovered a psychic stone that affected short term memory, making a person forget what happened a few minutes ago—but even more insidious, the affected beings didn’t even know they had lost part of their memory. So the Orion casino owners used it on their customers. They would forget how much money they had lost or how long they had been gambling, and just keep gambling until they had lost everything.

The employee who had found the psychic stone was a Ferengi accountant who found it at a Trovarg archeological site. The Orion family had the Ferengi killed so they could take possession of the stone. They framed Branit, Zotali’s lover, for killing the Ferengi. Before Branit could go to sentencing, Zotali made a bargain with the police and told them everything so they would release Branit. They released Branit from custody, but the Orions killed him, this time making it appear to be an accident. Federation Security decided it best to put Zotali in witness protection. They gave her a completely new identity, “Famara”, and put her on Starbase Sirius to work as a dancer. “Zotali”, as far as anyone knew, had gone to a remote sector and was never seen or heard from again.

          Thanks to Zotali’s testimony—not just concerning the psychic stone, but many other crimes of the family--the head of the Raizred clan, his wife, and their oldest son, were prosecuted and put in prison with a life sentence.

 

          “So now the Raizred’s assassin has found me.”

“Do you know how the assassin found you?” asked T’Avaya. Famara said she did not know. Then Miadere told Famara that the Orion mark that had been removed from her skin could still be detected by medical devices. Not only were they able to make out the clan symbol, but they also detected traces of ovmiite, a metal with a unique molecular structure that Deacon could use to find her. But it was only detectable in close proximity. He had found her general location some other way. A way they did not know yet. The ovmiite must have been something the Raizred clan put within their marks on their employees so they would always know their location.

 

T’Avaya walked through the airlock back to her ship where it was docked at the starbase. Cassandra was there, monitoring all communications using Starfleet Intelligence devices that T’Avaya had enhanced to pick up even the most hard-to-detect communiques--ones that starbase security probably didn’t know about.

Cassandra said there had been an encrypted message sent to Beta Orion. Plus, there was a constant subspace carrier wave on the starbase. She had traced it to Famara. It was a tracking device that was constantly signaling someone of her location. That someone—Cassandra had found—was Deacon.

 Then Cassandra picked up a hail from the starbase. It was for T’Avaya. The starbase governor told her that someone had broken into Famara’s residence. There was no evidence of anything being stolen. And Famara was still recovering in the starbase hospital. T’Avaya confirmed receipt of the message, and then she formed a plan.

 

          Famara was alone in her hospital room. She was sitting up watching a holovid. Her right arm was in a sling. A man walked in with a tray of food. He lay the tray on her bed. She told him she had let her doctor know she was on a special dancer’s diet, and this food he had brought was not in her diet. The man just smiled at her.

          Then T’Avaya walked in holding a phaser. She pointed the phaser at him. He started to reach for his pistol as she said, “Don’t!”

          Then Famara said, “Deacon, you already gave me your pistol.”

          The man looked at her and said “Huh?”

          “Yes, we know who you are,” T’Avaya said. He was obviously wearing a holo disguise. T’Avaya had worn such disguises many times herself on covert missions. She walked up to him and reached into his coat and removed his pistol.

          “What’s going on here?” he asked, confused.

          Famara raised her left hand from under the bedcovers. She was holding a glowing white rock. “This,” she said, “is the Trovarg stone. It made you lose your short term memory. All I had to do was say you gave me your pistol, and you were unable to remember if you had or not.” Then she put the stone back in its metal box.

          “The stone works very well,” the Vulcan said. “It will have to be given to the proper authorities. And you, Reeve Deacon, are under arrest for attempted murder, breaking and entering, and many past murders.”

          The starbase chief of security came to take him away. Famara handed the box to the Vulcan. T’Avaya asked, “why did you keep the stone after you testified against the Raizred clan? It seems the authorities would have taken it from you.”

          “I hid it from them,” Famara said. “Branit, my boyfriend whom they murdered, thought it might come in handy someday.”

          “Was it worth it?” T’Avaya said. “Risking everything for your boyfriend?”

          Famara looked sad as she explained. “Branit was a blue-skinned Orion. They are considered lowlifes by the green-skinned Orions. Everyone—the Raizreds, my family and friends—told me I should leave him. Find someone better. Branit and I were going to show them all that we could do it. We could love each other and be together no matter how different we were. But then he was killed, and I had nothing left to live for. After time, it’s still hard. I’ll always love him.”

          Miadere knew about the stigma of the blue Orions. She told Famara how sorry she was. Famara said she was glad it was over. T’Avaya told her she would probably have to be given a new identity, again, by Federation Witness Protection. She said that was fine. She would hate to leave the friends she had made here, but she knew what kind of life she had chosen.

 

          Miadere was helping Famara pack. “What’s it like being in a big show?” Miadere asked. Miadere had danced like most Orions, for small, private audiences, not formally. She often imagined what it would be like to be in a show.

          “It’s wonderful,” Famara said. “You can see the audience getting into the music. The applause for some of our moves and formations. The cheers. And the standing ovations at the curtain calls. Sometimes I get to talk to people on the starbase, and they tell me how much they enjoy it. It’s a great feeling. I’ll miss it. I even thought about being a choreographer once. Making my own shows.”

          Famara talked about her work for the Syndicate as a systems engineer. She loved the design part, figuring things out. Miadere herself was also multi-skilled. She was very hopeful that Famara would move on to another life she was happy with. It was such a shame she had to be under witness protection. She had so much potential.

 

          “Well isn’t this cozy?”

          T’Avaya looked up from her plate of vegetables and saw Miadere, with Cassandra following close behind. They were both smiling, so T’Avaya knew they had come to “spy” on her. They sat down at the table with her and Emac.

          “So this is your handsome friend,” said Miadere.

          “No wonder you’ve been keeping him to yourself,” said Cassandra.

          The Vulcan was used to the jibes from her friends.  She introduced them. Emac and Miadere exchanged a few words about them both being Orion. And Cassandra told him she had the utmost respect for Starfleet officers. Then the two women very coyly apologized for intruding on T’Avaya’s date and left.

          Emac stood up as they left the table. Then he watched them from behind as they walked out of the restaurant. “Very nice,” he said, sitting back down. T’Avaya was not at all concerned that they had caught his eye. She said, “they wanted to see if you were…appropriate…for me.”

          “Oh, I know. Did I pass?”

          “Apparently so.”

          The waiter came and poured more Balosian water. Emac went back to admiring his date. She was wearing a tight, low-cut black dress—not something you usually see a Vulcan wear. All he could think was that he was looking forward to tonight.

         

         

-by the Honorable Kavura, 1/27/25

 

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