Mercury Mission History
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USS Mercury Mission Archive Database
The following serves as a record of USS Mercury's missions under the command of Aron Kells.
SD 238905: A New Captain, An Old Enemy
As the Mercury began its pursuit of the Borg-ified USS Nimitz with its escort of three Cardassian warships, CO Miles Unum was also recalled. XO Arden Cain took command shortly until the new CO, Aron Kells, arrived aboard the USS Pythagoras.
The Mercury and the Cardassian vessels discovered the Nimitz hiding behind a moon in an unexplored solar system, and were immediately set upon by the Nimitz’s support craft. While the Cardassian ships received a pounding, the Nimitz’s shuttles beamed several parties of drones over to the Mercury as they deemed the Oracle-class design worthy of assimilation. Resistance in engineering, sickbay, and the computer core was especially stiff, but the Mercury crew slowly gained the upper hand and repulsed the invading force.
However, the Mercury crew soon discovered that the Borg had other plans: They were assembling a Queen in the computer core. The Nimitz appeared shortly to gather its support vehicles and made its escape as the Mercury crew disconnected the unfinished Queen from the Nimitz collective. With the Nimitz gone, both the Mercury and the Cardassian warships were able to assess their damage; the Mercury offered its assistance to the Cardassians, who refused, and so the Mercury continued deeper into the Menthar Corridor. The Mercury has just arrived at the star Eta Corvi, where the crew planned to spend a little shore leave time and finish their repairs.
SD 238906: Relics
The beginning of June found the crew of the Mercury on shore leave, and while some chose to enjoy the uninhabited tropical ocean world they’d discovered in the Menthar Corridor, others engaged in more personal exploits. However, the discovery of a flooded city by the XO, Lt. Cmdr. Arden Cain, brought shore leave to an end. Obsolete equipment in the city helped Cain to then discover a derelict space station in a decaying orbit around the planet. Cmdr. Aron Kells ordered Cain and an away team to explore the station and save it from falling from the sky if possible. While the away team had found the station to be uninhabited, they awoke spiderlike automatons, though their presence didn’t seem to be too hostile.
Meanwhile, on the surface of the planet, ops chief Lt. Cmdr. Alexander Matthews led another team to explore the flooded city and discovered an amphibious and evidently non-indigenous race called the Corvian. While Matthews and his team continued to explore the surface, the military leader of the Corvians beamed up to the Mercury to meet the ship’s CO. His visit resulted (or perhaps simply coincided with) the strange transformation of medical crewman Gypsy Hawker from fully human into an amphibious humanoid creature — one whom CMO Lt. Velana had just discovered was pregnant.
SD 238907: Intervention
The crew of the Mercury continued their exploration of the derelict space station in orbit above Eta Corvi IV. Interactions with the amphibious and pre-warp Corvian race revealed that they did not build the structure, as they were a race of space gypsies that settled on the planet thanks to its Class O status; and while they volunteered to assist CMO Velana with restoring Crewman Gypsy Hawker to fully human, diplomatic officer Danning and Counselor Avandar at last exposed the contradiction of the Prime Directive their contact with the Corvians implied. Direct intervention from Cmdr Kells reinforced Velana’s decision to proceed, and the Corvians left the ship soon after the procedure was completed.
Meanwhile, Cmdr. Kells led another team over to the station and the away teams split into three groups, one for each of the nodal control centers the station possessed. The teams succeeded in restoring minimal power, and contact with an android evidently created by the station’s builders assisted them in shutting down the cybernetic spiders, which were nothing more than service bots with corrupted programming. As the month closed, the Mercury and the away teams worked together to move the station back into a stable orbit.
SD 238908: New Alliances
Following the conclusion of their mission to explore and stabilize the derelict station, the Mercury stayed on station for the arrival of Starfleet Corps of Engineers (SCE) reps and equipment for the revitalization of the station, and her crew was the first to hear of Starfleet’s intent to make it a deep space station. The crew enjoyed a short leave before being recalled prematurely when Cmdr. Kells received unusual orders to head to Cardassia Prime to retrieve Prianna, a member of the Detapa Council, and her staff, and then to ferry them to Romulan space to give aid to those colonies that had been attacked by Klingons. The crew went above and beyond in preparing for the councilor’s arrival and, once she was aboard, kept her and her staff comfortable and entertained during the trip to Betazed to rendezvous with the USS Apollo.
SD 238909: Backroom Deals
After the Mercury arrived at Betazed, Captain Andrus Jaxx of the Apollo shared with Cmdr. Kells the nature of the incipient assassination attempt on Councilor Prianna. The rest of the Detapa Council saw her peace mission as a chance to eliminate her and had hired the assassin themselves. However, Capt. Jaxx was taken ill before the two ships reached Starbase 118, and while both ships took on cargo and new personnel, neither could uncover the assassin(s) and his/her plot.
However, just before the ships departed, intel officer Isaac Bale met with Dr. Velana regarding the plot. During their meeting, Velana was critically injured from remnants of the assassin's toxin. She was stabilized in sickbay, and the crew carried on toward the shattered Romulan world. En route, Bale uncovered the assassin — Councilor Prianna’s aide — and managed, in his own way, to eliminate him. Meanwhile, preparations continued for the aid-givers as the Mercury approached the colony.
SD 238910: October Surprise
The sudden disappearance of Captain Kells, Councilor Prianna, and the rest was only the beginning as the mysterious abductors vanished from the system almost undetected.
Initial attempts to track the abductors were met with a string of weird and hazardous malfunctions. While LtCmdr. Cain contacted Starfleet HQ, Chief Engineer Roshanara Rahman and science officer Ian West worked to overcome the malfunctions. After one of Rahman’s engineers Rick Rawden suffered an injury, the source of the malfunctions was discovered to be an artificial entity that had spread itself through the ship’s computer network, making use of the Mercury’s holographic emitters to interact with the crew through an avatar called Efili. The entity seemed to want to learn from the crew.
After the malfunctions ceased, the crew traced the abductors to Vador III. An explosive device detonated inside main engineering just after the Mercury entered the Vador system. The device, which was strapped to the warp core, did substantial damage and inflicted heavy casualties. A second device was safely removed without causing further damage. The culprit is yet to be identified. Acting CO Cain sent acting XO Eyas Wulfantine on the rescue mission using shuttlecraft while the remaining Mercury crew completed emergency repairs and anticipated a Klingon attack.
Meanwhile, beneath Vador III, Kells, Prianna, and the rest found themselves with no hope of escape until Captain Quinn Reynolds appeared outside their cells undercover in the facility. The group, upon discovering from Prianna’s the planet’s inhospitable surface and its history as a secret Cardassian installation, headed deeper underground, searching for the facility’s controls and, hopefully, a way out.