Sweet Dreams Are Made of This (Gorkon)
| 2395, Episode 10 |
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| USS Gorkon | ||
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 ACTIVE STATUS | ||
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Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
- Stardate 239508.14 to Present
The Maquis crew of the Skarbek has escaped Outpost Schulman, surviving a Cardassian raid. With a captured Starfleet Intelligence Officer, and a ship full of dreams, the crew hurtle toward the unknown.
Location
- Demilitarized Zone: Known as the DMZ. The buffer zone of the Alpha Quadrant where colonies were exchanged with the Cardassian Union under the terms of the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370. This is the stomping ground of the Maquis, resisting Cardassian control, without support from the Federation.
- Outpost Schulman: An outpost within the DMZ where the Maquis cell of the Skarbek was rumoured to be located. Once a thriving community and colony, it was destroyed by a Cardassian raiding party.
- Skarbek: The Condor-Class vessel and home to a Maquis resistence cell under the command of Walter Brunsig.
- Inayat-Khan: Shuttlecraft used by the Skarbek.
- USS Gorkon: Currently under occupation.
Plot Elements
++Coming Soon++
Notable Characters
- Lladre: Trill Outlaw and Would-Be Captain of the Gorkon
- Doctor Ana Mirovan: Dokkaran Amoral Scientist
- Cardassian Teenager: Found stowed aboard the Inayat-Khan
- Bondon: Arkarian, Maquis Comms Specialist
Mission Summary
Act One: Escape from Outpost Schulman
With their home under Cardassian attack, the Maquis crew of the Skarbek evacuate the civilians of the colony world and resist the invasion until they can escape.
- Bringing in the Skarbek for the evacuation:
- Team: Ayiana Sevo, Ferier Lanta, Tasha MacFarlane.
- Evacuating the injured from the medical clinic:
- Team: Cory Stoyer, Jocelyn Marshall, Genkos Sim, Yiggtissi.
- Providing armament support against the ground invasion:
- Team: Kael Thomas, Tasi, Davine D'fini, Groznin Smith, Valesha Sienelis.
- Securing the prisoner for transport:
- Team: Walter Brunsig, Trellis Vondaryan, Elias Burke, Emilia Krugol and one prisoner, Quinn Reynolds.
Note: Maquis crew will be referred to by their call signs, a full list of which can be found here: Skarbek Crew and Known Associates.
Civilians evacuated from the Outpost successfully, the crew of the Skarbek begin their daring escape under fire. Papa Bear, leader of the resistance fighters, issued the order to vacate all strongholds on the colony world and rendezvous with the vessel at an appropriate location. Commands given, he managed to avoid enemy fire to engage with his team in the makeshift prison, where their captive Commander Quinn Reynolds, Starfleet Intelligence Officer, had been held for a week. Prisoner in tow, they moved out of their position and headed toward where the Skarbek would be.
Meanwhile, the Maquis cell Second, known as Red and team began their perilous mission of bringing in the vessel to the rendezvous point (or RV). Dodging Cardassian fire from multiple raiders, they managed to get a landing spot close to where the main stretch of road once was that ran down the center of the outpost.
Further into Schulman, Kael Thomas and team worked to keep Cardassian invaders away from the medical clinic by using their ranged combat skills. While their position was quiet, with most of the fighting taking place deeper into the main street, elsewhere the Cardassians had started ground troop infiltration to clean up remaining colonists and any of the Maquis cell that may have still been alive. Once they were informed their position had been compromised and the location of the RV, they rolled out.
Over at the medical clinic, those injured in the first of the bombing raids had been taken down into the emergency shelter beneath. The team, comprising of the two Maquis Doctors, the technician and the engineer, worked to move the remaining wounded toward the RV. With some crew unable to walk and unconscious, they moved up into the main clinic and tried to repair the damaged transporter. Coming under attack from a Glin ground force, the team held off the attack until Stripper managed to get the transporter operational and they beamed back to the Skarbek, but not before Sim, Alias: Wheels set alight to the remaining gas canisters, blowing up the remnants of the clinic and their transport buffer pattern.
Upon landing, the Skarbek deployed the ramp to allow those left on foot to enter. However, this was in the middle of the Glin ground force. With little option remaining, Red provided the needed distraction by utilizing a large phaser weapon and blasting "Shoot to Thrill", an ancient rock music song by AC/DC in the hopes that the Cardassian forces would be drawn out and fall beneath her fire.
Once all crew were back on board the Skarbek, and the outpost lost to Cardassian shelling, they escaped the colony by flipping to warp speed within the atmosphere under the piloting skills of Sticks and fled out into the black of the DMZ.
Act Two: The Prisoner and the Plan
The Maquis crew of the Skarbek now on board their vessel, the reality of their situation becomes clear when the prisoner's identity is revealed and the plan set in motion by Captain Brunsig starts to take shape.
- Onboard the Skarbek, getting some rest and relaxation:
- In handcuffs, housed in unassigned personnel quarters:
- Team: Quinn Reynolds.
- Aboard the Inayat-Khan on the way back from a liaison with the Klingons:
- Team: Erin Reynolds, Samira Neathler, Thalas th'Koro.
Note: Maquis crew will be referred to by their call signs, a full list of which can be found here: Skarbek Crew and Known Associates.
With their prisoner, one Commander Quinn Reynolds, confined to empty Quarters within the ship, the escaped crew of the Skarbek come down from the heights of the daring departure from Outpost Schulman. Left with little to their name, and most of it broken, repairs began in Engineering to fix the tanker after jumping to warp within the atmosphere of the planet, alongside general repairs that required Sparks and Stripper to be on the top of their game.
Interrogation of the prisoner began with Slick, with the implication of torture for Commander Reynolds if she didn't give over the information they had been trying to extract for weeks. The threat loomed in the room with them, broken only by the arrival of Leg Man and Blondie for a medical check-up. They were joined shortly after by Wheels and proceeded to have several conversations on the nature of morality in the DMZ.
Heading back from their mission, Vines, accompanied by Newbie and Buttons, slip the Inayat-Khan into autopilot and get to know one another on board. Amidst a hangover that could flatten a raging Mugato, they were all feeling a little worse for wear after an evening with the Klingons. However, their mission proved to be a success, bringing back a cloaking device and several stocks of supplies from their liaison.
Meanwhile, another couple of liaisons were starting to take shape; one between Stripper and Red, with the former asking the latter to join him for a romantic meal in the Galley that evening, and the other between Scrounger and The Kid, which had started on Schulman and progressed on board. Both were more ill-fated than a trip on a steamliner in 1912.
During this, back on the Bridge, Princess, Sticks and Thumper speculate on the arrival of the prisoner on board, repair a couple of issues with the motherboard of the ship, and continue their course heading for their rendezvous point. Feeling the effects of the mission a little later than expected, Princess fainted on the Bridge and had to be carried by Sticks down to Sickbay, joined by Slick and Leg Man, who had been drinking in the space to while the time away with conversation.
Conducting an examination on Princess, Leg Man stumbled across an interesting prognosis regarding their combined mental state - notably, that they were all within the cycles of REM sleep and weren't actually awake at all. As Wheels joined them, they began their deeper investigation into the proposed theory. Simultaneously, on the way down to the Cargo Bay, Red took a nosedive, going incredibly dizzy and nearly passed out. She made her way to Sickbay.
In the midst of repairs, Sparks found that she required isolinear chips from their makeshift storage facilities and found herself in the same room with Commander Reynolds and dented the table with her cybernetic hand.
- Meanwhile, on the USS Gorkon - Lieutenant Caedan Nkai, Chief of Operations, had been shot in the side and managed to get into Sickbay. With the crew out cold from whatever malady had befallen them, the EMH was the only available medical personnel ready to handle his injury. Unable to remain in Sickbay for long for surgery to repair the bullet wound, Nkai convinced the EMH to patch him up so he could get back out to the ship to figure out what was going on.
Back on board the Inayat-Khan, Wilde found the core of the cloaking device they had brought on board the ship was pouring out high energy photons, reaching critical levels. Vines investigated, finding the device had been configured to register as though it was installed on a ship and not in storage, leading to Newbie and Buttons discovering a teenage Cardassian stowaway in their cargo hold.
In Sickbay, The Kid appeared with a cut in his hand from the Cargo Bay, amidst the chaos of the investigation into whether they were all sleeping/dreaming or not. This was swiftly concluded when Papa Bear appeared from his den and called into question the validity of their theory as well as the state of their equipment. A swift call to Sparks to fix their equipment, while drunk, and the rest scattered into the wind.
- Meanwhile, on the USS Gorkon - Lladre, an outlaw from Trill and would-be Captain of the Gorkon sat in the central chair as though she owned the place, watching several monitors of the streamed data from the Skarbek. Without much progress in the way of interrogation of the Commander, with most of the crew feeling some kind of allegiance to her without knowing exactly why, Doctor Ana Mirovan, architect of the dreamworld, pushes the scenario into higher gear.
Up on the Bridge, Sticks and Soup guided the Skarbek on the final leg of the journey to the rendezvous point, and met up with the Inayat-Khan. Granting access to dock, Sticks took off for the hold in search of food, Red took off for her date with Stripper, while Soup remained on the Bridge, holding an impromptu dance lesson with a seemingly recovered Princess, before escaping to the Cargo Hold once Sticks returned to show up his dancing abilities with a flared Trill rendition with Princess.
Down in the Cargo Hold, the docked Inayat-Khan allowed the disembark of Vines, Newbie and Buttons onto the Skarbek. A hearty greeting from friends and a welcome back on board later, the two new crew onboard were treated to a whistlestop tour of the Skarbek by The Kid and Scrounger, while Blondie and Vines retreated to her quarters for the sake of the continued health of the hygiene filters.
However, inside the makeshift cell of the Starfleet Intelligence Officer, the Commander dreamed of a romantic affair with Brunsig, culminated in a short, sharp, shock back to reality as the Arkarian crewmember Bondon laid into her, with no holds barred. Attempting to retrieve her codes, he beat her into unconsciousness while the rest of the ship carried on, blissfully unaware.
Until, after a shower to ward off the hangover, a conversation between Vines and Blondie reveals the secret they had been keeping from her - her twin sister, Quinn was aboard, and they were holding her prisoner. Taking off for the woman's quarters, Vines found her sister, unconscious on the floor, amidst splatters of blood.
The question was: who did it?
Act Three: A Dream Unravels
The Maquis crew of the Skarbek begin to feel the boundaries of their reality shifting when they are faced with the unconscious Starfleet Intelligence Officer and a question that their world is not as it seems.
- In Sickbay tending to wounded Reynolds:
- Team: Walter Brunsig, Quinn Reynolds, Genkos Sim, Yiggtissi, Erin Reynolds, Needles, Jocelyn Marshall.
- Investigating the makeshift cell for evidence:
- Team: Ayiana Sevo, Groznin Smith, Samira Neathler, Ferier Lanta.
- Trying to find the culprit to the beating:
- Figuring out what is going on while trying to remain sane:
- Team: Tasha MacFarlane, Cory Stoyer.
Note: Maquis crew will be referred to by their call signs, a full list of which can be found here: Skarbek Crew and Known Associates.
Discovering the extensive injuries inflicted on Reynolds had caused her to be "awake" somewhere outside of their reality, the nature of their existence was called into question. On the Bridge, the crew waged war on one another, pointing fingers and trying to find out who would have caused the beating on the Intelligence Officer. However, getting no where quickly, the crew split into teams to cover all ground as the very fabric of the dreamscape they were snared in began to unfurl.
- Meanwhile, having awoken in her Ready Room, Admiral Reynolds woke up the sleeping form of Ensign Fortune, a new Ensign reporting for duty, and aided Lieutenant Nkai, blasted by a phaser and managing to hold it together after some hasty patch-up work by the EMH (Emergency Medical Hologram). Shooting down in the Jefferies tube to the deck below to gather what equipment they could, their mission was to take back the Gorkon, or at least survive long enough to wake everyone else up.
Down in Engineering, Sparks (now moderately sober thanks to the chemical intervention of Yiggs) and Stripper found themselves in the Scottish Highlands, standing on the grassy hills overlooking one of the many Lochs. Appearing on the hill was a woman, which visible shook Sparks as she recognized her from her dreams.
Heading from the Bridge to the Quarters Deck, Red, Sticks, Newbie and The Kid found themselves standing in the cave of the Symbiont Pools on Trill, instead of the sleek interior of the Skarbek they were expecting. However, on closer inspection, the pool wasn't inhabited by symbionts, but by themselves, floating in the water, in Starfleet uniforms. Making a quick exit out of the cave, Newbie found another cave with jellyfish floating in mid-air, chased by seahorses who began to pop confetti-filled balloons with their horns. What looked at first to be confetti was actually acid flakes, snowing down onto the ground and burning everything it touched.
The team comprising of Slick, Buttons, Princess and Tails proceeded down one corridor to bang on some doors and hopefully find the interloper who had put the beat down on Quinn. What they found instead was a nightmare situation, with a devilish clown and disembodied arms coming out of the wall. Attacking the clown, they found him to be ethereal and vanishing, but the arms grasped Princess and Buttons, attempting to squeeze the life out of them.
- Meanwhile, back on the Gorkon, Admiral Reynolds and Ensign Fortune continued to aid Lieutenant Nkai and find out what was going on. Able to equip themselves from a storage locker, they heard the chattering of Lladre's goons in the corridor, aiming on taking Admiral Reynolds' children from her quarters to be used as a bargaining chip.
In Sickbay, Wheels and Vines were preparing to try and go into the mind of Commander Reynolds to find out where she was in her "awake" state and if she could do the same for them. Realising that it might be the last time they were to see one another, tender goodbyes were exchanged between them, and they settled down to start the link into Commander Reynolds' mind, watched over by Papa Bear, Yiggs, Needles, and Blondie.
Deep in the Scottish Highlands, which was once Engineering, Sparks and Stripper witnessed the woman they had seen screaming giving birth to a child, via caesarean section. As Sparks recognized the woman as her mother, she screamed and rushed forward, causing the woman and the scene to vanish, leaving the highlands oddly silent. There was a rustling in the nearby trees as two unicorns, clad in armour, appeared from the undergrowth, beckoning the two lost souls to follow them. It wasn't long until they were in front of another scene, only this time a young female child had tumbled down a hill, suffering a myriad of injuries, and lay unconscious at the foot of the hill. Unable to revive the child, Robert MacFarlane (relative of Sparks) pronounced her dead.
Inside the caves of the symbionts, trying to escape, a blessing of war unicorns barreled towards the team, covered in armour. Deciding the unicorns could understand them, the team followed the animals through the caves, ended up at a huge cavern cleft into the ground. Unable to cross, the team were stumped, until Sticks climbed up onto one of the unicorns, who jumped the gap without an issue. Taking them through the caves, they strode beneath a waterfall, coming through it into the makeshift quarters Commander Reynolds had been held in.
Once through the revolving corridor of arms and clowns, Slick and the team tumbled into deep water, finding they were able to breathe underneath the waves in the dark. Scared of what was happening, and trying to wake Princess, they tried to think their way out of the situation instead. The team appeared in a shuttle bay, complete with the visceral remains of their friends and colleagues.
Within the space of their minds, Vines and Wheels found themselves like ethereal beings floating in a sea of blinding white and noise, hundreds of voices sounding around them. They reached out to the mind of Commander Reynolds and instead, came into contact with the mind of Admiral Reynolds, freshly awake and not happy on the intrusion into her mind.
Deep inside the ship's cargo hold, Headhunter and Soup found themselves standing in a corridor of a refugee ship, cramped and crammed full of Romulan civilians. Unable to account for the last few moments, they tried to escape through the door that had brought them from the cargo bay, only to find themselves inside a separate cargo bay, this time full of Romulan civilians jammed into every available space. On the wall was a mural, written hastily in paint, a dedication "ch'Rihan, bedaoi."
In Sickbay, Yiggs, fresh from a nightmare of his own in which he experienced his own birth by cracking out of his childhood egg into the arms of his parents, kicked off the start of the dream unfurling for the rest of them. A disembodied voice chillingly spoke from the tanoy, the floor began to shake around them, and the ceiling began to crack with water running through it.
In the crew quarters, amidst dancing isolinear chips and a wave of rubber ducks flowing from a cupboard, Sticks discovered a locator beacon hidden inside the replicator, made by Commander Reynolds during her brief confinement. Using the tricorder Red found, they discovered blood spatters on the floor that were not Deltan/Human in origin, but Arkarian. Finding a small human girl, that was quite literally inches tall, she stood in the palm of Newbie's hand and informed them to follow the yellow brick road to Arkaria City.
Back in the Scottish Highlands, reeling from witnessing the death of her supposed sister, Sparks and Stripper came across a dark-skinned man sitting on the lower branches of a tree, wearing a long red, green and gold knitted garment, a cap of similar colours, and dreadlocks. He introduced himself as Skar and instructed them to continue through the rocks. Following the advise, they found themselves inside the Deflector Maintenance Bay of the Maquis Raider. A kitten was stuck in the console, a small kitten with ginger and black fur, a white belly underneath. Removing the cat started the rain from the ceiling and a fight for an umbrella for Stripper from Skar.
Down in Sickbay, the shaking and rattling of the walls continued, with pieces peeling off like the walls of an egg. In the midst of it, an ephemeral Quinn Reynolds appeared, younger in face and figure, informed Papa Bear that her mother had died, conversing with him as though it were a record being replayed. As she disappeared, the crack of thunder rolled overhead, rain pouring down through the ceiling, hitting the deck in engagement rings instead of raindrops. Inside the head of Blondie, her brother appeared from the ether, hand on her shoulder, and replayed a conversation about a hemorrhage, leading the woman to suggest the idea to the Doctor.
- Meanwhile, back on the Gorkon, faced with the goons and a possible threat to her children, Admiral Reynolds and Ensign Fortune managed to take down the attacking pair, removing their inhibitors from their necks. Armed with something that would now keep their crew from lapsing back into the dream, they gathered up Lieutenant Nkai and headed for Main Sickbay, finding Lieutenant Yiggtissi in a slump inside. Attaching one of the inhibitor devices to his head, they roused him from his slumber. As they did so, the dream version of Yiggs crumpled to the floor.
Inside the mind of Quinn Reynolds, Vines and Wheels were trying to convince the woman to help them wake up. However, she couldn't. She did inform them of the reality of their situation - they were all asleep, in a collective dream, and they were really Starfleet Officers serving on board the same ship - the dream was a concoction put together to get the command codes for the Gorkon from Admiral Reynolds while under the influence of a dream. Unable to progress any further, they elected to continue their delve into who they were by examining one another's mind for a past that wasn't part of the Skarbek dream sequence.
In the cargo bay of the refugee ship, it was becoming clear that they were no longer on the Skarbek and instead inside Headhunter's memory. Finding her mother among the Romulan civilians being evacuated, she tried to drag her to her feet, attempting to rescue her from the fate that was about to befall her. Unable to do so, completely ignored by the Romulan woman, the telltale signs of a life support failure sounded from the ceiling. Soup grabbed Headhunter just as the inertial dampers failed, flinging everything and everyone inside the bay into the aft walls. Within the space of a blink, they were standing in front of the mural again.
On the way to Arkaria City, the team encountered a rollercoaster sent from Hell itself, which strapped the team down into the seats before flinging them into outer space. Unable to do anything about it, they flung past a dwarf star, coming to an abrupt halt outside a lone door with Arkaria City in white letters. Opening the door, they found a single chair inside, an unconscious Arkarian sat on it, a cone of light emanating from the ceiling. Stepping from the darkness was none other than Skar, handing the bound prisoner over to the others as a gift.
Standing in the shuttle bay with the remains of their colleagues, Slick and team were beginning to run out of ideas on how to escape their minds. Without any purchase hold of the dream state they were in, they relied on their thoughts to try and escape. Collectively thinking together, they found themselves transported again from the shuttle bay, this time appearing in a desolated plain inside a ruined temple. Light streamed through the cracks in the walls and the void of space dropped beneath the cobbled stones on the floor.
Inside Arkaria City, they interrogation of the prisoner began. Known only as Bondon, under duress, the Arkarian revealed the overview of the plan and his roll in it to Red and team, namely that the aim of the game had been to elicit codes for the Gorkon from Commander Reynolds while under the influence of the dream. Ready to escape from the confines of the dream sequence, Bondon tapped the device on the side of his head that kept him in the dream state, and his body crumpled to the floor.
Within the Shared Psyche, Vines and Wheels delved deeper into their minds, using one another as a telepathic guide. Discovering who they were through poignant flashbacks of their reality and history, the two realized what they were going through was a simulation implanted into their minds, and they now had a grasp on who they were and why they were there.
Back in the Deflector Maintenance Bay, Sparks and Stripper tried to get back through the ship to the Bridge, but when heading for the doors, found a large forest stretching out in front of them. Tribbles lined the grassy floor and as they moved toward them, they grew to the size of a small dog, bared their teeth and began leaping for them. Retreating back to the safety of the Maintenance Bay, the two found a stash of weapons behind a wall panel showed by Skar, picking up a Scottish Claymore and a large warhammer. Without a moments hesitation, the two ran forth through the double doors into the Tribble abyss.
- Meanwhile, back on the Gorkon, with Lieutenant Yiggtissi now awake, the team scrambled to find a way to wake everyone up simultaneously and to keep them from falling back into the dream state. Using her experience as an Engineer, Admiral Reynolds and Lieutenant Yiggtissi generated the neuro-cortical pulse through the emitters of a tricorder into his comm badge. Picking up the signal using the ship's internal communications, Admiral Reynolds amplified the signal to project it across the ship to each and every person within the vicinity of one.
Act Four: Wakey, Wakey
The crew of the USS Gorkon begin to awaken back on the ship, having been asleep for a few hours at the hands of Lladre and her criminal crew. Faced with multiple situations of sabotage, alongside adjusting back to their realities as Starfleet Officers, could prove difficult.
- In Sickbay tending to the wounded:
- On the Bridge, with the bomb:
- Team: Ayiana Sevo, Cory Stoyer, Ferier Lanta, Emilia Krugol.
- In one of the computing labs, amidst a smoking ruin:
- In the shuttle bay, investigating the accident:
Mission Reports
- Stardate 239509.25: Starfleet Receives Distress Call from USS Gorkon, Crew Unresponsive
- Stardate 239510.21: Starfleet Dispatches Rescue Vessel to Aid USS Gorkon
| REV SD 239511.08 |
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