Station Tyrellia: Episode 1: Captain’s Bounty

 

Engineer’s Log. Stardate 45113.5. Chief Engineer Dr. T’Avaya reporting. I am leading the engineering team on a project to install an upgrade to Space Station Tyrellia’s external communications array, using specs that I designed myself. The array was built to enhance communication through the class 3 gravitational waves that are prominent in this sector due to a class G star that went supernova three years ago.  The upgrade will increase our ability to send and receive subspace communications by fourteen percent. The upgrade is complex and must be done in three stages. We implement stage 1 today. Even though this is a civilian station, it is in Federation territory, and the Federation has taken considerable interest in the outcome of this project.

 

Chief engineer Dr. T’Avaya was at the communications array with her team. She took the shuttlecraft Kal-toh Xi directly to the array’s command center on the outer edge of the array. The Vulcan was thankful that the array was built with a small docking port, since gravimetric interference may sometimes render beaming over to be impossible. She exited the shuttlecraft and entered the command center. Other team members were outside in space suits installing external modulators to the array. T’Avaya, for her part, worked quickly and efficiently. She had been planning this for months. It would take three hours to install her new harmonic shift modulator and program the main computer to accept the changes.

Upon finishing, she was about to take the shuttlecraft back to the station to run tests on the array, when the console beeped. T’Avaya checked the readings on the console. There was a message from an unknown source. She ran the new harmonizer and buffered out the gravimetric interference. Then she saw that the message came from subsector 142, the uninhabited side of the sector. She played the message. “This is the merchant ship Captain’s Bounty. We are trapped in a plasma eddy. We are on a collision course with a nearby star. Need help. Repeat we are on a collision course. Need help immediately!” T’Avaya immediately hailed them. “This is Dr. T’Avaya of the Space Station Tyrellia to the Captain’s Bounty. Do you read me?”

“Yes. We read you Tyrellia.”

“What is your status?”

“We are stuck in a plasma eddy. Our propulsion drive won’t come online. Impulse drive is also down.  We are on a direct collision course with a class F star. We will be in the star’s gravity well in 18 hours.”

“Stand by. We will try to send assistance.”

Dr. T’Avaya relayed the message back to her station. She sent it as urgent, so that it would be routed directly to the station director, Tab Nilo. The director looked grave. The station’s assigned starship, the science ship USS Prophecy, was too far away, delivering a vaccine to a colony planet in subsector 547. The station didn’t have another ship they could send to help the Captain’s Bounty. T’Avaya offered to take a runabout to the ship in distress. She convinced Nilo she could use her engineering skills to get their propulsion system back online and steer them out of the eddy and away from the star. She sent a message to the merchant ship letting them know she was on her way. She took her assistant engineer with her, a Bolian female named Luruwa Layin.

               On the runabout Tongo Eta, T’Avaya and Luruwa made it to the vicinity of Captain’s Bounty in one hour. Luruwa said, “Scanning ship. It is a retired Starfleet ship, Oberth class. Standard Starfleet crew complement, 180. Scanners show the ship currently has twenty lifeforms.” T’Avaya knew that merchant ships typically had much smaller crews than Starfleet ships, so there was no need to assume at this point that the ship had had any casualties. They both noticed the colorful designs on the outside hull of the ship. Surely Starfleet doesn’t use such garish outward designs. They had obviously been added by a post-Starfleet owner of the ship. T’Avaya asked Luruwa, “Can we beam over to the ship?” “Negative. Too much interference from the plasma eddy. And it would not be wise to try to beam into a moving ship.” T’Avaya determined that the merchant ship was being carried by the eddy at a speed that was slow enough that they should be able to land the runabout in the ship’s shuttlebay. She hailed the ship and asked them to lock a tractor beam on the Tongo Eta. Both engineers felt the tractor beam would be safer than trying to manually land on a moving ship.

               Once they were in the merchant ship’s shuttlebay, the two women exited the runabout and were met by a Bolian who introduced himself as Captain Opam Ovbe. He was wearing lavish bright blue iridescent robes and a red feathered hat. Not the way you would picture a ship captain. But then, perhaps it did somewhat match the painted design of the ship’s outer hull. The captain and Luruwa both flinched at each other. “I don’t believe it,” said Captain Ovbe. “YOU have come to rescue ME? I think I’d rather die in space.” Luruwa addressed T’Avaya and said, “We grew up on the same colony. I haven’t see him it eight years. Apparently, he hasn’t changed.” T’Avaya dismissed them both. “We don’t have much time,” she told the captain. “Please escort us to engineering.”

 

Engineer’s Log. Stardate 45113.8. Luruwa and I are aboard the merchant ship Captain’s Bounty. The ship’s captain seems to be a man of lavish tastes. Also, he seems to have some kind of quarrel with Luruwa. I am at a loss to explain this, as Luruwa has always shown herself to be friendly and well-adjusted. As for the situation on the ship, I am optimistic that when I see the engine room, I will be able to fix the engines in minimal time. There are twenty lives on this ship who are depending on me.

 

The captain bowed his head and led the way. As they were walking, he explained that they had an engine failure that generated the plasma eddy and sucked the ship into it. In engineering, Ovbe introduced them to his engineer, an Andorian named Th’Thanetelali. “Call me ‘Netel’ “, the Andorian said as Ovbe excused himself to go to the bridge. T’Avaya asked Netel to explain exactly what had caused the plasma eddy. He seemed reluctant to talk. “There was an…imbalance in our…propulsion system.” “What kind of imbalance?” The Andorian turned to what would normally be a warp core on a Starfleet ship, but it was not a warp core. T’Avaya recognized it immediately. “That is a Romulan propulsion system.” Netel did not volunteer any information on the Romulan system. He told them the EPS conduits had ruptured. Both T’Avaya and Luruwa knew that it was very odd to use EPS conduits with a Romulan quantum singularity drive, but somehow Netel had connected them and made it work…at least until recently. Luruwa examined the contraption. The Romulan drive system was connected to a plasma manifold, which had EPS conduits connected to the ship’s power systems. “I think we can replace these conduits with the spare EPS conduits we brought on the runabout. It looks like there were loose connections that caused a plasma leak.” The two station engineers excused themselves to make a quick trip back to the Tongo Eta.

On the way, T’Avaya told Luruwa, “Whatever your history is with the captain, I trust you can put it behind you; at least until the danger has passed.” “It won’t be easy.” Luruwa stated. “We both started working at Tremen Blue Corporation at the same time, both of us as apprentice engineers. When I got promoted after one year and he didn’t, he simply couldn’t take it. He left the corporation, and quit the engineering field. I still think he’s doing pretty well for himself, being captain of this ship and all. But he still can’t get over being jealous of me. He always has to be the one with it all.” T’Avaya started to reply, but then they both saw something in the corridor. It was some type of mosaic of colored lights. At first glance, they thought it might be some concoction of the captain’s, showing off his taste for bright colors. But then T’Avaya pulled out her tricorder and ran a scan. “The tricorder reads chroniton energy. The area around the anomaly is fluctuating. The energy is going in and out of time and space.” 

All of a sudden, T’Avaya was home, on the frontier colony planet Sa’idi 3. Her mother, a long-time politician, looked at her with those probing eyes that T’Avaya would never forget, and uttered the words she would always remember, “True success comes from being compassionate.” T’Avaya stared in wonder. Her mother had died of the Vulcan disease Husimza ten years ago. “Have you seen this before?” T’Avaya turned around, and she was back in a corridor on the Captain’s Bounty with Luruwa and someone else of an alien species she had never seen before. The unknown alien introduced himself as the ship’s pilot, Ginsa. He softly said, “No” in response to Luruwa’s question about the bright chroniton energy mass. Then they saw the energy mass disappear into the bulkhead. T’Avaya regained her composure and continued to the shuttlebay, as time was of the essence. As Luruwa and Ginsa followed her, she asked Ginsa if there was a scientist aboard the ship that might know something about the energy mass, and Ginsa again said no.

When T’Avaya and Luruwa returned to engineering with the spare conduits, they saw the energy mass again. Ginsa and Ovbe were also present. T’Avaya walked to the engine console, and the energy mass seemed to follow her. T’Avaya froze. Luruwa recognized the look on the Vulcan’s face and stated, “She’s sensing something telepathically.” T’Avaya let out a gasp of emotion: “The energy mass is a living being, and it is trying to communicate with me. The only thing I can sense is that it is frightened.”  The captain pulled out a phaser and started to shoot at the energy mass. Ginsa dived for the phaser and screamed, “No! Firing a phaser in engineering could kill us all!” Ginsa gripped Ovbe’s arm. Ovbe tried to pull his arm away as T’Avaya went behind Ovbe and neatly applied a Vulcan neck pinch. Ovbe was out cold.

As the two space station engineers set about to replace the EPS conduits, Ginsa went to the bridge so he could be at the helm once the engines were back in working order. The engineers finished their task and rerouted the main power coupling. Finally, Ginsa was able to slow the ship down and steer her out of the plasma eddy.

 

Engineer’s Log. Stardate 45114.1. Doctor T’Avaya reporting. We were able to repair the engines so the ship could be steered out of the plasma eddy. We are taking the ship to Space Station Tyrellia. I do not know why the entity made me have a vision of my deceased mother. I do not know how it got here, and I have yet to determine if it is ill-intentioned. There is also the strange pilot named Ginsa. He is of an unknown alien race. Though he acts friendly, my instincts tell me that he is hiding something.

 

Now out of danger,and the captain locked in his quarters, T’Avaya and Luruwa went to the bridge. Ginsa told them the truth: “Ovbe made Netel install the Romulan artificial quantum singularity drive, even though Netel knew it could be disastrous installing on a ship that wasn’t designed for it. Some of the crew mutinied, but the captain had enough followers to put the mutineers in the brig. He kept Netel because he needed an engineer and me because he needed a pilot.” “Why did he want the Romulan device?” asked Luruwa. “Because he was smuggling rudathite to the Romulans. That’s why we were so close to the Neutral Zone. He thought the drive system would make us harder to identify by Romulan sensors in until we could make contact with our buyers. He bought it from a Pakled trader in the Hobar system. And a cloaking device would have been too expensive.” Rudathite is a rare metal that is used in Romulan weapons. Luruwa was shocked, “So this ship is a smuggling vessel?” Ginsa shook his head. “I’ve only been here a week, but from what I’ve heard, most of their operations are legal. This was just a deal too good to pass up.”

The energy mass appeared and started expanding and moving toward T’Avaya again. Then, Ginsa took a device out of his pocket. It was round and silver, with a silver ring on tip. He rotated the top part of the device, and the energy being started to get brighter. Now T’Avaya was able to telepathically sense words in her mind from the chroniton energy being. “It calls itself Umeri. It is in pain.” T’Avaya glanced at Ginsa. “Your device is causing it pain. Stop!” Ginsa slowly held up his palm. “I am only trying to help it. It is stuck in space and time. This device helps to mobilize the space time continuum in Umeri’s immediate vicinity. The pain is only temporary.” He is my friend, T’Avaya heard Umeri speak to her in her mind. Luruwa looked back and forth between Ginsa and T’Avaya, confused. T’Avaya finally spoke up, “Yes. Umeri knows Ginsa. Umeri got stuck on the ship when they activated the quantum singularity drive. It just happened to be at that space and time when the drive was activated. Ginsa is a time traveler, and he knew this creature would be trapped on this ship because he had seen the future. He came to set it free. He couldn’t do anything until the ship was out of the plasma eddy.” Ginsa replied, ”Something is wrong. My time space mobilizer should allow Umeri to go back into its own time and space, but it’s still here.” T’Avaya knew he spoke the truth. She could sense Umeri becoming tense again.

As Ginsa tried to figure out what to do about Umeri, he continued to pilot the ship to Space Station Tyrellia. He knew the captain would face charges for using an illegal Romulan device and for smuggling and endangering the lives of his crew, and the rest of the crew would be charged with aiding and abetting. The crew did not resist being taken to the station. After having been trapped in the plasma eddy, they were just glad to be alive. They knew they had to suffer the consequences of their actions. The singularity drive and the rudathite in the cargo holds would be turned over to the proper authorities.

On Space Station Tyrellia, the Vulcan engineer obtained her quantum scanner, which was more powerful than a common tricorder, and went with Luruwa back to the Captain’s Bounty. Umeri was still there, unable to leave the ship. T’Avaya ran the quantum scanner over the entity. “I am reading some strange quantum filaments. The being is made of chroniton energy, but these quantum filaments have a different particle feedback than the chroniton energy. I think the quantum filaments are not a natural part of the entity.” Then she realized it. “My upgrades to the comm array caused a small amount of quantum filaments to be emitted into the subspace field. It should not be harmful to any beings that we know of.” Then Luruwa picked up on it. “Except that this being is different.” “My upgrades caused this,” T’Avaya said regretfully. Luruwa tried to console her friend. “In all the years I’ve known you, you have always tried to treat all life forms with compassion. You couldn’t have known about this.” T’Avaya whispered, “True success comes from being compassionate.” T’Avaya thought about it. It was what her mother had always told her.

 

Chief Engineer’s Log. Stardate 45115.7. My team and I have uninstalled all of the upgrades on the comm array. The array was taken offline and then rebooted. Umeri has now gone back to its home. Before leaving, it communicated to me that it considered me a friend. I am very grateful. I asked why it made me see my mother. It said that it did not make me, but rather, that is where my mind wanted to go. I was fortunate that as a telepath, the entity was able to reach out to me and make me realize that my  mother had always been my true guiding force in life. I will now be more careful with my engineering designs. Ginsa also thanked me before he left. I still do not know what species he is or where he is from, but I wished him safe travels. I assured director Nilo that I could make a new design that would not emit quantum filaments. It should be a matter of readjusting a few modulators. Estimated time to completion is one month at most. I  am now going to my weekly Suus Mahna sparring session with Luruwa. She has always been a worthy sparring opponent. I value her friendship.

 

Thank you for reading my Captain’s Log story. Captain’s Log is a solo role-playing game by Modiphius Entertainment.

 

-by the Honorable Kavura