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 Meanwhile, upon reaching the edge of the void, Khitomer's bridge crew narrows in on the distress call, and quickly recognizes it as an old Federation code.  A brief investigation reveals that the source is in fact much closer than first thought, and closing the gap reveals [[Constellation class]] '''USS Eridani''' to be the source of the call.  The ship is the source of a great deal of speculation, hanging suspended in a slow, three-axis spin.  When the questions start to add up with no answers in sight, Shayne orders Nolen Hobart to lead an away team onto the ship.
-Hobart takes bridge officers Connor Dewitt, Ezra Zerva, Ras El'Heem, and Richard Matthews as well as engineer Ginny Lacy and security team leader Vanta Nebir aboard '''USS Eridani''', and the team prepares to find anything aboard the derelict ship packing no small amount of security and engineering equipment.  The team beams aboard, and makes their way to the engineering section of ship where they force their way in with a crowbar.  Once inside, they begin powering up subsystems and trying determine what happened to the drifting ship, only for the ship to begin righting itself seemingly of its own volition.  Moments later, the ship powers its shields and impulse engines, jamming communications as it darts off into the void without any inertial dampers to protect the away team from the harsh acceleration...
+Hobart takes bridge officers Connor Dewitt, Ezra Zerva, Ras El'Heem, and Richard Matthews as well as engineer Ginny Lacy and security team leader Vanta Nebir aboard '''USS Eridani''', and the team prepares to find anything aboard the derelict ship packing no small amount of security and engineering equipment and with environment suits donned.  The team beams aboard, and makes their way to the engineering section of ship where they force their way in with a crowbar.  Once inside, they begin powering up subsystems and trying determine what happened to the drifting ship, only for the ship to begin righting itself seemingly of its own volition.  Moments later, the ship powers its shields and impulse engines, jamming communications as it darts off into the void without any inertial dampers to protect the away team from the harsh acceleration...
 {{Heading|Act 2|#C0C0C0}}
+Aboard '''USS Eridani''', cargo and away team go flying every which way leaving Chief Vanta injured and unconscious when a crate hits her.  It's a fight to get the inertial dampers up working before more damage is done.
+Meanwhile, newcomer Ensign Semara and cleared-for-duty Lieutenant Jacin meet up with Captain Shayne, Commander MacKenna, and Ensign Michaels on the bridge.  At the helm himself, Shayne chases after the wayward ship, determined not to let it escape with the away team.  In response, '''Eridani''' opens fire on '''Khitomer'''.  Meanwhile, Semara and Michaels search for answers how to either stop the ship or get the away team back.  The bridge crew, unfamiliar with each other and navigating personal differences struggles at first to make a plan of action, but an insight from Jacin gives the first clue that the crew is likely dealing with some sort of intelligent entity that either is the ship or is in control of the ship.  Operating on that premise, '''Khitomer''' closes in and uses its running lights to flash various communication patterns and Shayne "wiggles" the ship in the fashion of old-Earth pilots in an attempt to get whoever or whatever is aboard '''Eridani''' to communicate back.  The attempts are met with silence... But '''Eridani''' does cease firing on '''Khitomer''', giving the crew a respite to figure out how to proceed.
+Aboard the renegade starship, Dewitt and Lacy have managed to wrest control of the inertial dampers before too much more damage is done, but the away team has more questions than answers now... and one injured member.  Dewitt and Lacy remain in engineering to try restoring environmental controls and other essential systems, while Hobart and Zerva go to the bridge in search of clues, and El'Heem and Matthews head to sickbay with the unconscious Vanta hoping to heal her.  When El'Heem and Matthews reach sickbay, they're greeted by a macabre scene: the frozen bodies of the former crew of stacked atop one another.  They can't do anything for those already passed, but with Dewitt and Lacy restoring lights to sickbay and the bridge, they'll be able to help Vanta.
+On the bridge of '''Khitomer''', Semara has concocted a bold plan to gather more data about what's really going on, but it requires getting quite close to the ship that was hostile only moments ago.  With the only obvious alternative being aggression, which Jacin firmly and rightly stands against, Captain Shayne orders relief helmswoman Prix to perform a maneuver to "show the belly" - a submissive gesture in the animal kingdom - in order to close the gap without hostility.  Several tense moments pass, until the ships get so close their two shields briefly touch, overloading into '''Khitomer''''s comm systems.  Mercifully, there's no casualties from the incident, and even better there's now quite a bit of data coming in about the nature of what's happening aboard '''Eridani'''.
+The data gathered regarding '''Eridani''''s shield frequencies in particular proves invaluable, and Michaels formulates a plan to bypass the jamming to communicate with the away team alongside Semara.  Additionally, the information clears a path for a series of scans that reveals a shocking conclusion: not only is '''Eridani''' possessed by a non-corporeal entity, but a juvenile.  The influx of new information creates a stir among the bridge crew, who fear for the away team who has still not responded, but the calls for patience and level-headed thought win the moment, however.
 {{Heading|Act 3|#C0C0C0}}
+Moments after El'Heem and Matthews get Vanta on the bio-bed, things go very wrong.  An energy surge of some sort floods the biobed, washing over Vanta's body, and extinguishes the security chief's life before either the doctor or scientist can do anything about it.  Unbeknownst to them, the entity aboard '''Eridani''' consumed her life force for itself, believing the unconscious Vanta "didn't need it any more".  Now, as it declares over the ship's public address, it would like the away to play...
+Fear reaches fever tilt among the away team, and XO Hobart orders the team to make for an airlock, disable some shield emitters, and launch themselves out the ship.  Before evacuating main engineering, Dewitt and Lacy improvise a program to try to detect any more power fluctuations, and now a reading is headed straight for the XO and security officer.  Hobart and Zevra take cover in the observation lounge with a burst of power ruining the bridge behind them, and find the running lights of Khitomer blinking in the windows...
+Aboard '''Khittomer''', Semara's Betazoid empathic senses alerts the bridge crew that not all is well with the away team, spurring them to action.  Shayne demands action in sixty seconds, and the crews lands on an even riskier plan that brings them dangerously close to '''Eridani''': They're going to fire an EPS umbilical at the ship and attempt to "feed" the non-corporeal "Junior" with "formula" composed of energetic gasses and warp plasma, hoping that this act will get the being to view '''Khitomer''' in a friendly light.  Just as '''Khitomer''' begins to close, Michaels finally gains contact with the away team.  Shayne fills Hobart in on their plan, but communications become staticky as the shield interference intensifies again as Prix closes the distance between the ships.  In a revelation that will greatly increase the plan's odds, Shayne orders Hobart to deploy the solar capacitors - a historical piece of hardware installed on certain ships after the "Whale Probe" left many Starfleet ships without power.
+The garbled communications leaves Hobart and Zevra wondering what, exactly, Shayne meant for them to do until the former-engineer XO works it out, and exposes the solar capacitors in time.
+'''Khittomer''' manages to score a solid umbilical connection straight into '''Eridani''''s EPS backbone with the solar capacitor now exposed, and the energy transfer proceeds apace.  The transfer stops before the warp core can start, but not until "Junior" has gained considerably in strength.  Between the new strength and close distance, Semara now declares she can sense the entity's presence and, using Jacin's historical reminder of the Horta as a precedent, she suggests she could initiate telepathic contact with the entity.  She finally manages to communicate with "Junior", and in consultation with the bridge crew, begins attempting to negotiate the release of the away team in exchange for play time.
+''To be continued...''
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