Garuda Mission History: Difference between revisions

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The month began with shore leave aboard [[Deep Space 10]] as both captain and crew came to terms with the results of the last mission and their assignment to the ''Garuda'', the {{USS|Mercury}}’s ''Galaxy''-class successor. However, while controlled chaos reigned behind the scenes — civilian astrophysicist {{n|J.|Cowens}} disappeared during the ''Mercury''’s fire-fight with the Cardassian warship ''Nok’Tan'', and that disappearance precipitated a fierce but quiet manhunt, among other things — the majority of the crew enjoyed a pantomime of ''Peter Pan'' as brought by the United Service Organizations. Unexpectedly, though, many members of the senior staff were asked to participate in the panto when the USO’s full troupe did not arrive on the station. After a week of rehearsals, the senior staff presented the pantomime for the enjoyment of the rest of the crew. During the performance, however, the captain suddenly recalled everyone from shore leave for the ''Garuda''’s next mission: first contact with a powerful race deep in the [[Menthar Corridor]] known as the [[Kubarey]].

Just before the ''Garuda'' departed DSX, though, it was approached unexpectedly by a Cardassian diplomatic shuttle with Detapa Council member [[Prianna]] and Federation Ambassador {{n|Lily|Ventu}} aboard, both of whom were welcomed politely but guardedly as both openly mentioned complicating agendas that extended beyond the first contact. Still, the trip to the [[Rho Aurigae system]] proceeded smoothly and without incident.  

The crew of the [[USS Garuda]] were all excited about being involved with a historic First Contact with the [[Kubarey]] race, but things did not go according to plan. Although apparently invited to the remote Kubarey outpost, initial contact could not be established with either the vessel in orbit or the planet. Captain {{n|Cassandra|Egan Manno}} took a diplomatic away team down to the planet’s surface to investigate, while her crew probed the other ship in greater detail.

Fortunately sanity finally prevailed, and the Garuda was returned to Captain Egan Manno, and the entire crew, except the unfortunate Crewman Jones who died fighting the Kubarey, could return home to [[Deep Space 10]].

With the fraught first contact mission with the Kubarey over, the Garuda crew arrived back to Deep Space Ten for some well earned rest and relaxation. However, Lt Jade Shryker had been badly injured during the Trials, and both she and the abducted Commander Ross had to deal with their experiences as best they could. On the station, Commander Ross and Captain Quinn Reynolds were reunited after being apart for the whole of the last mission, although Reynolds unwittingly got punched during a bar fight in Ten Forward. Fortunately Doctor McGregor and LtCmdr Bakari were on hand to assist.

The crew of the ''Garuda'' traveled to Zeta Equulei, a K-class star, to meet the two rival alien races of the [[Community]] and the [[Myr Luuk]]s. Both races were quite unusual in appearance. The Community were comprised of one collective consciousness, who used plant-like avatars to communicate with the Starfleet officers. Meanwhile, the Myr Luuks were giant furred centipede-like beings, whose chosen form of communication was to project holograms mimicking the ''Garuda'' crew members themselves.

Upon arrival at the gas giant and orbiting moons, the crew of the ''Garuda'' realised that they had stumbled into a system engaged in a cold war, with the Community ships blockading the Myr Luuks. Wanting to not only mediate between the two races, but also investigate reports of some rare artifacts from the lost civilisation of the Ancient Alliance, Captain Egan Manno split her crew into three teams. She sent LtCmdr Calderan with the Saucer section of the ship to liaise with the Myr Luuks, and a team under FO Commander Ross down to the surface of Zeta Equulei 3 to talk to the representative of the Community, Bodhisattva. Meanwhile, Captain Egan Manno kept her remaining crew upon the Stardrive section of the Garuda, waiting to assist either of the Away Teams. However, whilst doing a system check, Chief Rahman and Ensign Rawlings discovered some damage and potential sabotage in engineering conduits of the Garuda. Soon after, strange disembodied voices started taunting the crew as the Stardrive section was pulled towards a 'void' in space, where many Myr Luuk and Community space ships were found drifting and derelict - a veritable ship's graveyard!

The crew of the USS Garuda found themselves between a rock and a hard place during their mission to the Zeta Equulei system where the Community and the Myr Luuks were hostile neighbours.

To remove themselves from making the situation any worse, Captain Egan Manno decided to reunite the saucer and stardrive sections and withdraw the USS Garuda from the Zeta Equulei system. However, it must be noted that the Myr Luuks – unsatisfied with the Federations overtures, began negotiations with the Cardassians soon after. Before the Garuda arrived back at DSX, Commanders Rahman and Core discovered that a nest of DSX’s rogue spider-drones had been making a new home in the Garuda’s plasma conduits. The nest was excised quickly and the crew began shore leave on DSX, though there remained several loose ends to tie up....

The crew of the Garuda, including the surprise return of a younger Aron Kells, were busy working to save the population of the city of Bocasa. This city, the largest settlement of the Eth race on the planet Pleethion, was about to be engulfed by an unstable, volcanic mud dome.

With the crew reassembled, the engineers and scientists on the Garuda worked to develop a plan to dehydrate the Mud Dome and save Bocasa, before beginning their pursuit of the wayward Harrison Ross and his captive, Capt. Quinn Reynolds.

The booby traps planted on the USS Garuda NCC-73809, some of which had exploded, were found to be Cardassian in origin. However, the crew did not have time to ponder this discovery for long as they needed to use the ship's phasers to dehydrate an unstable volcanic mud dome that threatened to engulf the alien Eths' city of Bocasa. With this threat neutralised, Captain Casandra Egan Manno asked for volunteers to go after Commander Harrison Ross, who had kidnapped Captain Quinn Reynolds and abandoned his team mates. He was eventually tracked down, and Reynolds was rescued but not before she had undergone terrible physical and mental torture at Ross' hands. Ross managed to evade capture, and so the crew returned to their base at Deep Space Ten for some quiet shore leave and reflection. However, when they arrived they found out that the Federation had given joint! control of the station to the Cardassians. Was this an olive branch for peace, or a partnership of peril?

The crew of the USS Garuda savoured shore-leave after a somewhat traumatic last mission with its fair share of teachory and sabotage. However, things were cute short when they were soon called away on an urgent new mission. This was to intercept their fellow Federation starship, the USS Mercury. For many on the Garuda, the Mercury was there former posting and all were concerned to hear reports that it had attacked and largely destroyed the USS Icarus. Had the Mercury and its crew turned renegades, or was there some insidious outside influence on all of this?

The USS Garuda raced to the location where the encounter between the Icarus and the Mercury had been reported, only to discover that the crippled Mercury - far from trying to hide, openly hailed the Garuda. However, scans showed no lifesigns whatsoever aboard the damaged science vessel. Two away teams beamed over, under Lieutenant Commanders Calderan and Core, who were tasked with restoring the Mercury's systems and discover who or what had caused the disaster. Meanwhile, the Garuda received a distress call from what was the Mercury's jettisoned sensor pod. Captain Egan Manno ordered the Saucer section under LtCmdr Mei'konda to remain to assist the away teams, whilst she took the Stardrive section, with the still under arrest Roshanara Rahman as advisor, to locate the sensor pod. Back on the Mercury, the away teams started seeing strange shadowy figures, who looked like crew they had served alonsgside in years gone by, and even came face to face with a phantom Lieutenant Sky Blake who simply vanished into thin air.

The USS Garuda split into its primary (Saucer) hull under Lieutenant Commander Mei'konda; and the secondary (Stardrive) section under Captain Egan Manno. Whilst Mei'konda waited to assist the Away Teams on the Mercury, Egan Manno went to the rescue of the survivors in the pod. However, far from being full of refugees, the pod contained a mutant monster that beamed over to the Stardrive and ran amok before being eliminated. The real Mercury crew were actually in smaller lifeboats and had already being rescued by another ship.

With the damaged Mercury secured, the Garuda towed it back to Deep Space Ten for repairs. The crew looked forward to some rest and relaxation over shoreleave. However, not all the crew could do so. Rahman was still facing a court martial for her actions in assisting the traitor Commander Harrison Ross a few month before. Worse still, Lieutenant Commander Alleran Tan - a Trill - suffered a near fatal symbiont rejection and needed emergency surgery, his fate still hanging in the balance.

The USS ''Garuda'' returned to Deep Space Ten for some much-needed shore leave, and the crew enjoyed their time relaxing and recovering from the previous mission. However, their time to recuperate was cut short when, without warning, alarms blasted and quarantine containment doors sealed across the station. The crew were stranged in small groups throughout the station and needed to deal with the rising panic among the civilians -- a process made much more difficult by the recent Federation/Cardassian treaty that put the station under the join control of Starfleet and the Cardassian Union's space navy. After the idea that the crisis was just a malfunction was ruled out, a number of the Cardassians on the station started becoming sick -- showing symptoms such as bleeding from the mouth and nose, accompanied with violent coughing. Some of them even needed emergency resuscitation. To make matters worse, Captain Egan Manno and the ''Garuda'' were summoned away just minutes after the crisis began on an urgent mission for Starfleet, leaving the remaining crew under acting-CO Lieutenant Commander Nia Calderan to find out what had caused the quarantine systems to engage and to keep the station's population from falling victim to whatever the pathogen might be. Things seemed to have stabilised when Doctor Chythar Skyfire isolated a virus from an early patient and began working on a cure, and a team under command advocate Lieutenant Commander Msafiri Bakari tried to get the station's systems back online; but this was ended when a chilling video message was broadcast across all monitors in the station. Terrorists calling themselves the Maquis Reborn announced their connection with the release of the virus, and to prove their seriousness, murdered the Cardassian CO of the station live on air.

Following the bombing of Deep Space 10's main medical center by Nikael Kalre and the Maquis Reborn, the Garuda crew worked quickly to regain control of the situation before Kalre's imposed time limit for his demands -- that the Federation release all remaining Maquis prisoners -- ran out.