The 'Future' of Starfleet (Arrow)
| Episode 13 |
|---|
| USS Arrow | ||
|---|---|---|
 LOST | ||
| ||
Characters
| Officers taking part in the mission | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Notes | |
| Randal Shayne | Commanding Officer | ||
| Karrod Niac | First Officer | ||
| Danny Wilde | Mission Specialist | ||
| Connor Dewitt | Engineering Officer | ||
| Nolen Hobart | Engineering Officer | ||
| Artinus Serinus | Chief Security/Tactical Officer | ||
| Seesh | Medical Officer | ||
| Talia Ohnari | Medical Officer | ||
| R'Ariel | Medical Officer | ||
| Quentin Collins | Chief Science Officer | ||
| Jacin Ayemet | Science Officer | ||
| Ash MacKenna | Chief Intelligence Officer | ||
| Mission Specific NPCs | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Notes | |
| Ginny Lacy | Leading the thesis project being tested. | Cadet of Gamma Wing | |
| Gerry Lacy | Leading the thesis project being tested. | Cadet of Gamma Wing | |
| Allura Daniels | CO of the Libris | Captain | |
| NPC's & PNPC's | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Notes | |
The 'Future' of Starfleet
The elite Gamma Wing cadets of Starfleet Academy need a way to test out their thesis and prove their vastly different view of Starfleet's future is the best path forward. Command assigns the Arrow to act as their test opponent, and The Swamp as their environment. With a host of spatial disturbances, volatile gasses, sensor traps, and of course the typical players in the Alpha Isles, what could possibly go wrong...
Act 1
Greeted icily by one Captain Allura Daniels of the U.S.S. Libris, the crew of the USS Arrow is ordered by tightbeam Command assignment to follow the Libris to a specific sector of the Alpha Isles, a sector more than a full day away by high Warp. The orders are further backed by order of Starfleet Academy, which intrigues Captain Shayne, but provides no further indication as to what the crew should expect.
In transit, the orders become clearer. The Arrow is to serve as the "antagonist" to a series of wargames between the Arrow and the Libris, the goals of which are to determine the space readiness of the Gamma Wing students and test the new modified Nova-class Libris' worthiness in the field as well. To this end, Command determined a set of rules as well as a short-term officer exchange in order to supplement the near-skeleton crew of the Libris.
Team Arrow would consist of Captain Shayne, Mission Specialist Danny Wilde (also serving as the contest's arbiter), Ensign Hobart, Chief Serinus, Science Officers Jacin and Collins, and finally junior Medical Officers Seesh and Ohnari. Team Libris would be Commander Niac, Ash MacKenna, Engineer Connor Dewitt, Counselor R'Ariel and the enigmatic Lacy Twins, two hotshots on a meteoric rise to prominence in Starfleet.
The setting? The Swamp. A highly condensed, largely unexplored sector of the Alpha Isles which stands lousy with stellar phenomena. Phenomena such as gas clouds, asteroid ribbons, at least two barren moons, and all other manner of cosmic detritus perfect to hide a starship in. Finally, the combatants arrive and exchange their officers. The board is set. The pieces start to move.
However, Cadet Gerry Lacy, giving not a fig for sportsmanlike conduct, interrupts an early strategic conference between Team Arrow with a full broadside of dummy photon torpedoes.
Act 2
As the "games" continued, calamity struck both ships.
In response to Gerry Lacy's underhanded attack, Captain Shayne, Jacin Ayemet, and Chief Serinus devised a devious counterattack. The Arrow itself would feign a severe plasma leak, venting the plas into space and drawing the Libris closer into the Swamp's nebulae. However, the leak would be a literal smokescreen for a small complement of modified sensor probes. Tweaked with tiny charges like ancient naval weapons.
The plan was brought into reality and the leak was sprung. For a while, it seemed as if Libris was taking the bait. Even through the protests of exchanged officers Commanders Niac and Ash MacKenna, who implored Helmsman Gerry Lacy to break off. But their advice was unheeded and Lacy plunged them into the leak. Seeing too late the real danger hidden in the plasma.
From there, chaos reigned.
Triggering one of the probes, the Libris was then caught in a massive reactive explosion. One that burned the gas clouds around them and even swept the Arrow into its wake as well. Lacy sustained a massive head trauma while the ship's artificial gravity was shifted, causing massive casualties and injuries extending even into the lower decks and into Main Engineering, where his sister Ginny, Connor Dewitt, and Counselor R'Ariel were located during the first volleys of the games.
Over on the Arrow, Captain Shayne and the remaining crew continued to deal with aftershocks from the gas cloud explosions. Which then soured further into a tumultuous ion storm which knocked out Arrow systems for a few moments.
Of course, the worst was still yet to come.
Act 3
Still recovering from the gas cloud explosions, both ships and their shuffled crews worked to restore their systems and get handle on the situation. On the Arrow, repairs were started and work was underway to restore the sensor arrays. While on the Libris, Ginny Lacy and Connor Dewitt headed toward the Computer Core to kick on the Libris' automation system.
On the Libris Bridge, however, Gerry Lacy had plans of his own. Captain Daniels had died in the explosion, leaving the Libris without their one commissioned officer (and moral guidepost). And as Ash MacKenna languished in one of the Bridge's emergency slots and Karrod Niac worked to free her, Gerry was in "conference" with some of his fellow "Gammers". Preparing them for an eventual turn on the Arrow exchange officers, likely by the barrel of the unmodified hand phaser Gerry had ferretted from the Captain's Chair using a memorized command code.
The trouble was...Gerry Lacy was the only surviving Gamma Wing cadet on the Bridge. And he had just attempted to take command of the ship, direly intoning to the assembly that he still planned to "win". Niac and MacKenna filed this information away for later, hoping against hope that the Cadet hadn't lost his mind in the melee. Meanwhile, down a few decks, Dewitt and Ginny Lacy continued a harrowing journey into the Computer Core while Counselor R'Ariel tried to attend to as many surviving Cadets as she could.
Over on the Arrow, a new plan was formulated. Commander Niac and LT. Jacin would lead two teams. One, Jacin's team, would try to assist in repairs to the Libris and assist any and all survivors along the way. While the other, Commander Niac's, would steal away into the ship and try to bring order to the situation by finding the highest ranking officer available. Both teams heartily supplemented by the remaining Arrow Medical staff, Ensigns Ohnari and Seesh while new arrivals Ensigns Zabi and Slipka rounded out the remaining slots.
Neither The Swamp or the Libris herself would make either of these tasks easy.
Act 4
Instantly the Arrow away teams were stymied by all manner of hurdles. In the flight between the ships, both shuttlecraft were assaulted by randomly automated weapons fire, malicious excomps, and newly shorn debris from the Libris. More specifically one of the port nacelles phasered off in its untargeted lashing out.
Thankfully, Ensign Slipka's pointed computer manipulation and the fancy flying of Niac and Jacin finally allowed both teams to land on the exterior hull of the Libris. As Niac's team continued inside, Jacin's stayed outside for a few beats longer. Hoping to at least make some repairs to the ship while Ensign Slipka kept ready their egress.
Inside however, things had started to take the turns Commanders Niac and MacKenna feared. Though MacKenna was nursing a mangled foot and Niac tried to hold a steady peace with Gerry Lacy, his injuries and continually warped perception of events started to eat away at his rationale. Opting to turn his stolen weapon on his company in order to separate from him.
Providing him the unbidden opportunity was his sister Ginny, who had made it to the Computer Core and promptly sealed herself inside. Countermanding both Gerry's first commands and Slipka's errant computer lockdown codes. After affectively taking control of the ship (and unwittingly kick-starting its self-awareness), Ginny "flipped the script". Turning the ship's gravity down dramatically in order to restore it. Even through the protests of Connor Dewitt. In the confusion, Gerry then escapes his party and follows a ghost toward "victory".
Conclution
As Ginny ushers the Libris AI into life and the Away Teams converge into one in the ship's Main Engineering section, a similar, yet diminished scene is playing out on the Arrow.
Unwittingly infected by the emergent AI, a lesser, more rudimentary form of the intelligence is attempting to take hold of the Arrow's Computer Core. Captain Shayne will have none of that, however, as he and Lieutenant Commander Collins race to block the program from the ship's major systems. Though, in the fracas, the rudimentary AI pleads for help and understanding, lessening it's hold on the Arrow systems.
The Captain, moved slightly by the program's candor and child-like demeanor, issues a new order. Find a way to isolate the program and dislodge it from their systems without deleting it entirely. Thankfully, The Closet INTEL Suite allowed a simple solution in the form of a blank Janus Computer Core. After a briefly fraught trek down to the Suite, The Captain and Chief Science Officer aimed to corral a corrupt AI.
While on the Libris, Ginny Lacy finally saw her dream of a self-aware starship come true. Unfortunately, the ship itself also knew it wouldn't survive much longer. Despite protests from the ship itself and several heated exchanges between herself, Connor Dewitt, and Ensign Slipka, Ginny planned to die with her ship.
But Gerry however, planned a much more sinister endgame. Waiting until the whole of the Arrow teams were assembled in Main Engineering, he sprang an ambush. Supported only by the after-image of his dead friend and a stolen phaser rifle of Captain Daniels'. What he hadn't counted on however was the now completely eroded patience (and granite-like fist) of Karrod Niac, who quickly subdued the Cadet and placed him in the charge of Security Chief Serinus.
From there, the First Officer ordered a general evacuation of the Libris and secured the last remaining survivors of Gamma Wing. Including Ginny Lacy, who was finally absconded from the Computer Core thanks in part to the Libris AI which wished to see her and her brother survive the ordeal.
In a harrowing pair of shuttlecraft flights (allowed home by a full ship reboot shepherded by Captain Shayne and Chief Science Officer Collins), the teams and their charges were brought into the Arrow holds where Medical Staff awaited those injured. And the Brig awaited for the more overtly dangerous of the Gamma Wing Cadets.
As of this filing, the USS Arrow is en route to Deep Space 33 for repair and refit where then shore leave conditions will be engaged. The fates of Ginny and Gerry Lacy, however, are unknown at this time.
Important Sims
- - Captain Shayne: A Different Sort of Stellar Nursary - The Arrow meets the Libris and the Captain initiates a mission briefing.
- - Captain Allura Daniels: Rewriting the Rules - Insight into the CO of the Libris
- - Cadet Gerry Lacy: Age Before Beauty - Meeting the Twins
- - Cadet Ginny Lacy: Eyes on the Price - Meeting the Twins (2)