Prologue (Arrow)

Teaser

Finding the USS Arrow adrift and abandoned, the USS Juneau transports a boarding team aboard her to restore order and investigate the mysteries of Arrow's presence in the Wilds.

Important Characters

  • Former commanding officer of the USS Arrow

Mission Reports

Part 1 - Chasing the Comet

Fresh off the shakedown cruise, the USS Juneau began its adventures with an investigation into a suspicious comet, inexplicably emitting Eichner Radiation while maintaining a collision course with Uiliv V, a planet harboring a pre-warp civilization.

Upon arriving, they quickly found the USS Arrow adrift in space, orbiting the comet. Noting that her presence in the reason was both suspicious and unexplained, Captain Oddas Aria of the Juneau ordered Commander Randal Shayne to take a team of officers from the Juneau and board the Arrow. Their mission; explore the vessel, assess her status, regain control and find out as much as possible.

Part 2 - Fifty ways to Blow Up

As the away team left for the Arrow, a cursory scan of the derelict ship from the outside revealed clear signs of extensive weapons scarring. It was also detected that life support was isolated to certain sections of the ship and much of the emergency systems onboard, including lightning were offline. The officers quickly reached a consensus that the level of damage was demonstrably above any normal skirmish.

As they landed on board the vessel, the first signs of the more sinister nature of the situation started becoming clear. A weak dampening field was quickly detected within the shuttlebay - and at that one which specifically targeted non-Arrow equipment. The officers split into two teams. One was to head up to the bridge to regain control of Deck 1. The other headed down to Main Engineering, to secure the warp and computer cores.

Both teams quickly encountered resistance. The bridge team was stopped nearly immediately by a oily, viscous puddle blocking their way forward. A quick analysis by Lieutenant Commander Quentin Collins quickly revealed it to be the liquefied remnants of a humanoid being. Before the team could digest this information however, it was rapidly detected that two large figures were approaching them. After some quick thinking and masterful deception by the team, the two intruders, both dressed in primitive environmental suits, were subdued and marked for transport back to the Juneau, where they would be detained. After regaining their bearings, the team continued on to the bridge.

Meanwhile, the second team rapidly proceeded towards engineering. They were briefly interrupted by a large bang from the upper decks, but an executive decision was taken by Commander Shayne to move on. As they reached engineering they were met with a new challenge - the door was sealed shut. Options were quickly discussed and dismissed, including cutting through the door. A solution was found in a maintenance shaft leading the way in. As they entered Main Engineering, they quickly got into a fight with more intruders including a Ferengi and two more of the boarders the other team had encountered. After subduing and transporting them out, the team quickly got to work regaining control of the ship.

Back on the bridge, the crew had begun repairs. A quick attempt to restore power however, revealed that the power packs were completely empty. Using an external battery they accessed the systems overlay, only to find the relays to main engineering mostly cut. As the situation began to become tense once more, the power suddenly came back online, signaling that the team in engineering had managed to initialize the warp core.

The crew in engineering had detected something working against them, trying to stop them from regaining control. It soon came to light that the cause of many of the malfunctions was a sort of “Scorched Earth” program, which was systematically deleting the computer and its data. Simultaneously, sensors detected missiles coming towards them, having been launched from the surface of the planet. Furthermore, the deep delete had started to have real effects, with the loss of the thermal subsystems beginning to lead to heat buildup across the ship.

Meanwhile, the crew down in engineering had made some headway into deciphering what had happened to the ship. An attempt to override the communication lockout had played back a log from the previous commanding officer, attesting that the previous crew had abandoned ship and attempted to return to Federation space.

Back on the bridge, the crew>s immediate attention had turned to the missiles hurtling towards them. Some quick thinking by the warrant officer had them redirect the pent-up heat through the bussard collectors into a rapid particle stream directed at the primitive explosives, causing them to explode, while simultaneously draining the excess heat off.

Faced with an impossible situation, Lieutenant Commander Collins issued a command to transfer his command codes to the Arrow and ordered the computer to reverse the deletion program, stopping it in its tracks and ending the immediate threat to the ship.

Part 3 - We find Bugs

To be continued (as I'll write it within the next day or two)