When the Guns Fall Silent (A Star Trek quest)

(13d -> 8s)

The Crewiry is reoriented, and power shunted to shields. Everyone is ordered to brace, and the explosive wave propels you.. for quite a while. Longer than you thought, if you were going to be honest.

(4d -> 6s)

But thankfully, you only had some casualties, and no fatality. The wave has pretty much wrecked deck 4 in terms of it being functional, but the EPS cutoffs prevented fires. There's no atmosphere, but your engineers begin working on restoring it to at least spaceworthy levels as you exited grey mode, and reestablished contact with the Romulans, who had managed to escape. Sharing data, they promise to make sure it gets to Romulus, and Dalirath wishes you a fond farewell.

After all, something is peculiar when the data on you came from two intelligence agencies. Regardless, you start the trip back to Starbase 385, sending only an urgent and coded Admirals-Eyes Only report to Nechayev. As you predicted, you were recalled to Starbase 385 for debriefing. The reasons seem unclear, but as you near the edge of the subspace buoys, the headlines tell you more than you wanted to know:

Federation Security announces anti-corruption probe into the Assembly

Starfleet Operations under investigation by Starfleet Internal Affairs

Romulan Star Empire announce a section of the feared Tal Shiar were 'Traitors to the State'

Klingon Intelligence expels operatives in dishonor.

....Sometimes you wonder. Sometimes, you think it's best not to know. Then it gets bizzare.

Gagh shop shut down, owner executed

Federation promulates emergency checks on food services for all official functions

Five task forces reshuffeled

Idol group experiences graduation of all members.

'The hell.' You knew the group - Battle Stars - and it was a thousand-member group divided into local groups, the idea that each planet had 'their' idols.

Not all of them were the same age, so why graduate all of them at once?

Then you saw the next set and had a sinking suspicion

Federation Security announces massive conspiracy - many trillionaires arrested, Assemblymembers arrested in massive inquiry

Cadre of senior Admirals now hospitalized and several officers dead in firefight in Starfleet HQ.

Romulan Star Empire announces new procedures for all serving officers

Federation Assembly announces new bills for verification of all automatic procedures, medical procedures, and transporter systems.

The Psi Scorpius system has been sterilized, says, Starfleet, of a highly invasive and lethal fungus species. Many ships there had to have been totally destroyed, and only biohazard level 5 hospital ships are being allowed in.

Several Nebula are now restricted sectors according to Federation Navigation and Standards.

Khitomer Alliance announces the formation of a join Khitomer Alliance Military Force, to be formed of rotating squads from member nations, with the first force, the Alliance Expeditionary Fleet, being sent out to explore the Beta Quadrant towards the Delta later this year.

... The Psi Scorpius system had no planets capable of sustaining life, but was a major fleet depot.

As you cross the threshold of the Astral Sea, you get an "escort" of two Akira-class ships, which are primarily escorting you - they peel off as you reach the local patrol space of the three ships around the Starbase, who are now patrolling you in.

The debriefing took place with.. a lot of people interested in how you and your detachment investigated this conspiracy.

In return, you learn that you had uncovered a peculiar conspiracy in Starfleet HQ, seemingly driven by a parasitical lifeform. There was a shuffling of defenses, but many of the infected has focused on Operations and Defense, meaning that many previously relied-on reports had to be tossed out and redone.

This time, though, they had also began to reach into the Federation to investigate, and many were being found in the upper echelons of Federation society. The need to decentralize had been re-inforced, and a profound unease about how much they really knew was settling in.

The Federation was going to be looking inward for a while, changing their exploration to full task forces. There was also going to be a focus on internal security - pirates shouldn't be operating on as wide a field.

In essence, the war had forced them to take a look at themselves, but now they need to take another.

That said, 75% of the ships on exploration duty would return to it - just in task forces.

Your ship might be one of them. But that is a tale for the future.

In the meanwhile, you would be assigned to the Starbase, and helping with diplomatic overtures. There was a just after-warp society discovered, and you would be sent as the diplomatic attache to a task force headed that way. Your crew was promised to be temporarily assigned out, but once the Crewiry was finished, you'd all be together again.

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Author's Notes: I was going to drip-feed this over the next few missions, but it's very likely the story continuation will probably not have the dice-driven events here, so I just included them here.

Some of the news was going to happen regardless, so not all of it is related to the ongoing conspiracy.


So, now that we're at the end

I want to thank anyone who's followed or read. And especially if you've voted for or discussed.

Thank you.

I'll be working on a story version of this, soon, and a quest for something else, but until then, I wish you fair seas and a star to steer her by.