STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

[DragonCobolt]

The clink of crystal glasses and the murmur of procedurally generated almost conversation made Paris feel like it had come to life - when, really, it was just holograms and hard light. Adora fidgeted in her seat, fingers tumbling over one another as she rehearsed what she was going to say again and again, her eyes flicking over the skyline of Paris, the glittering and slightly bent Eiffel Tower sitting exactly across from the cafe. Then a horrible thought struck her.

What if Catra didn't like the modern Paris?

What if she asked why the Eiffel Tower was bent!

What if she wanted to see a pre-atomic blast Eiffel Tower? Or, what if she asked why no one had restored it? Then, Adora's entire speech would be derailed! Derailed completely by having to go into the stupid intricacies of the French cultural heritage - a rabbit hole that she herself had gone down while programming this, after asking Tom Paris why the tower was kinda bendy like that. That had nearly robbed her of the entire speech writing time, which was why she had needed to push the date back a week with an excuse about having to review security team briefings. And she had never once thought: Hey, what if I just fixed the tower?

Crap. Crap! Crap!

"Uh, computer!" she said.

"Jeeze, a girl's fifty seconds late to her date, and you start panicking," Catra's voice caused Adora to jerk and spin around.

Then her speech left her head for an entirely different reason.

Adora had said it was a date. Catra had asked 'not, like, a fancy date, right?' and Adora, in a panick, had said no, yes, maybe, wear what you want, sure, anything's fine, bye gotta go. So, she hadn't been expecting Catra to arrive in a ludicrously well cut male style suit, european fashion, with a red jacket and pants that made her look like she was born to kill. Her bare feet skimmed along the ground as she walked forward with her hands in her pockets, her smirk playful. "Nice place. Why's the tower so fuckin' melty, though?" She brushed past Adora, her tail slipping along her pale cheek with a playful flick.

"Uh..." Adora stammered. "T-The, uh...one of...the MIRVs...you looks...good..."

"I look so good that I managed to hit this city with an atomic?" Catra asked, sitting across from Adora, her expression purely smug, radiating a raw 'ah hell yeah, i'm good, aren't I?' She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her knuckles. "...hey Adora..." she purred, her eyes flickering with playful light.

"H-Hey..." Adora said, slowly.

"You ever think about how...insanely lucky we are? To get here? To end up in this place? The only time and place where being marooned away from civilization still nets you fancy holographic dinners and a steak?" Catra asked, then said, casually. "Computer, replace all men with hot women."

"Not...very realistic for 24th century Paris," Adora said, chuckling.

"Hey, it's my date," Catra said, her eyes sparkling even more. "Computer, make them all dumb blonds."

"Hey!" Adora said.

"What can I say, I have a type," Catra purred, her tail darting behind her, in slow, sinuous patterns. "So, uh, how has your duty shift been going? Is Munroe still itching for more action?"

"No, she's fine," Adora said. Speech. Speech! Her own internal voice sparked at her and she coughed and sat up. "C-Catra, I...was thinking we need to talk." She nodded, firmly. Catra frowned. Her ears twitched down, then started to flick against her head - as if they wanted to pin back and she wasn't letting them.

"Okay," she said, her voice too even. Adora gulped. Shit. Was saying that the wrong start? She didn't want to start off wrong.

"I-it's...I mean, we need to...to talk about our relationship!" Adora said, nodding.

"What's wrong? We're in love, we can finally be together, what more do you want?" Catra asked, her voice immediately angry, defensive.

"Uh-" Adora blinked. Shit. This was not going how she wanted at all. It had been so easy infront of her mirror. She stammered. "N-No, no, no, I! We're great. I'm great! You're great, but-"

"But what?" Catra asked, scowling at her.

"But nothing!" Adora said, hurriedly. Her speech was tumbling, in a tailspin, rushing towards the ground. It was on fire, the wings were peeling off the spaceframe. She hurriedly lurched forward."I meant and! Us, and, that is, we, our relationship and-" Catra was frowning at her. Shit. Shit. Shit! Pull up! "There...we...and...I...I want to have kids!"

Catra blinked at her, her mouth opening. Closing. Opening again. Her ears twitched…and then flattened. "What."

There was no question mark at the end of what.

"I think y-you'd...you'd be a way better...I mean, mom! You'd be a good mom-" Adora stammered. Her entire plan of laying out how actually this was a surprisingly stable place to have children, that starfleet often had children aboard ship, that there was no safer place in the Delta Quadrant, that she was fine waiting as long as Catra needed to take, it all fell apart as Catra stood, her eyes flashing.

"Fuck no," she said, then stalked past Adora.

"Catra, wait!" Adora said, then stood, but Catra was already at the door out - snarling.

"Computer, arch!"

The door opened and shut and Adora stood there, her hands going to her face.

"...stupid!" She hissed, rubbing her palms over her eyes. "Stupid."

***
​

Harry Kim sighed as he dialed in on the long-ranged subspace sweeps that the USS Voyager had been throwing out, ever since they entered this area of space. The clear markings of Kazon development and deployment - the small subspace ping stations, the sensor arrays, the passive scanners that were so huge and so primitive that they'd be both easy to spot and impossible to be interesting by the Borg, all of it was signs that they were here. The issue was that there were dozens of Kazon septs, and each one had a slightly different take on their species wide goal of maintaining technological...what was the term?

Harry frowned, slightly. "Thresholders..." He paused, then cocked his head as he adjusted the scope view slightly, parallaxing the energy signatures. "Ah hell."

"What is it, honey?" Princess Lyan Positron asked, phasing into reality behind Harry. Her arms slid around his shoulders and she nuzzled the top of his head. Harry blinked, then looked up at her - he had been working in his home console running through the sensor pings and feedback at his own pace between shifts, so it wasn't exactly shocking to have one of his dimensionally transcendental lovers appear to comfort him. But it was still a pleasant surprise. It was one of the reasons why he liked working from home. Harry sighed, then pointed at the screen.

"See those?" he asked. "Those are warp bubbles - shipping, the kind of thing you get between two planets, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"This planet here has the pretty solid sphere of transmissions, with the classic ten, twenty year bubble of a recent colony. This planet, though? Nothing. There are ships going from a technologically advanced world to a primitive world." He frowned. "And they're not...all...Kazon ships."

"Wait, not all?" Lyan asked, her voice soft, curious. "That seems...odd. If it's a Kazon fiefdom, why are there non-Kazon ships in there?"

"That's what I want to know," Harry said, frowning. He sighed. "I'm going to need to get to the briefing room."

And so, with only a short pause to wipe several lipstick marks off his cheek, he got to the briefing room, where Janeway, D-91, Tom Paris, Torres, Tuvok, T'are and Amy...er...Adora were all ready and waiting. Adora seemed a little distracted - but Harry was more focused on laying out the facts, his projection showing the grainy images and subspace ripples that he had pulled off the sensors. He pointed. "You can see the ship here - the warp signature is enough for a heavy warship or a major transport - it's not a smaller ship, like the other ones."

"It looks like a sheep dog," Janeway said, her voice soft. "Leading a convoy."

"Is this region of space contested? Full of pirates?" Tom Paris asked.

"We haven't seen any sign of it," Harry said. "There's no warning buoys and, more importantly, no ground to run too. The closest thing we've seen to a hiding place is the bleedthrough nebula we passed by three days ago. And that leads to a dimension without the time axis, so, it's not exactly a two way door."

D-91 raised his hand. "This low tech planet. Anything of interest on it?"

"We're not sure, we'll need a closer look," Harry said. "But there are no signs of major mineral deposits, and it's not throwing out the subspace interference patterns of a major subsurface dilithium load. If there's any, it's deep enough to take deep core mining to reach. Now, uh, if there is a deep core dilithium mine there, it'd be a motherload - planets of this classification either have no dilithium or a hell of a lot." He frowned. "But then you'd think the colony would be there."

Janeway nodded. "Opinions so far?"

"It may be prudent to avoid entangling ourselves in this situation, no matter what it is," Tuvok said. "This sept - the Luran - is an unknown quality. Whatever political situation they have with the other aliens here, it is a matter of internal politics and, thus, beyond our purview and firmly in the field of the prime directive."

"What if they're bad guys, Mr. Tuvok?" Tom asked.

"That is, of course, the devil's advocate argument - if they are exploiting a less advanced neighbor, then our essential morality dictates action," Tuvok said, his voice bland. "But such action would need to be grounded in a firm understanding of the subject."

"Tuvok has it right," Janeway said, nodding. "We could dispatch the Val Jean, her cloaking device will keep her hidden."

"I wouldn't," Harry said. "The Kazon have passive observers that can pick up the neutrino flux of a cloaking device. Tactically, they'll be impossible to find. But strategically, operationally, they'll be as much as throwing up a flag. Right now, we're outside of their detection range..."

"And going around would take how long?" Tom asked.

"Two, three months."

"Well, it's a seventy year trip..." Tom muttered under his breath.

"What about a shuttle?" Janeway asked, her voice soft.

"Better chance of being unnoticed," Harry said.

"Better chance of being shot down, or destroyed," Tom said.

"Noted," Janeway said. "However, we need more information before we either go blindly stumbling into things or stumbling around them." She frowned. "IF the shuttle runs into trouble, the Val Jean can swoop in without being directly spotted. She can be our safety net, no?" She smiled thinly. "Who do you think should be the pilot? Adora, I want you on there for tactical analysis."

"Of course, ma'am," Adora said, nodding. Also, I can survive most things, she thought, a bit grimly.

"Best pilot for shuttles?" Tom asked. "Well, if you're not sending me, ma'am, I'd say it'd be-"

***
​

Catra glowered at Adora as the two of them stood in the shuttlebay, both of them in their uniforms, phasers at their hips, scanners and survival bags ready.

"Adora," she said, flatly.

"Catra," Adora said back, her voice equally as formal. The urge to apologize, then also, demand that Catra apologize for totally overreacting both slammed into one another, then piled up on the fact that she still needed to be professional and on the ball. So, instead, Adora said. "We're just going in to gather information. So, uh, keep your trigger finger under control."

"Sure," Catra said, frowning. "Which of these buckets are we taking?"

Adora looked over at the shuttles, biting her lower lip.

---
MOMENTUM: 0

TRAITS: None

[ ] Shuttlecraft - nice and middle of the road
[ ] Runabout - big and tuff, can be customized with a mission pod!

[ ] Cargo Container​

[ ] Combat Attachment​

[ ] Long Duration Mission (bedrooms/survival gear)​

[ ] Sensor Module (Sensors!)​

[ ] Attack Fighter - fastest, sleekest, stealthiest

There's no write in cause...those...those are your three choices...

 

[DragonCobolt]

Author's note: Wow, this took longer than expected to write because i was inundated my nephews and nieces. They're very loud, adorable, and distracting.

"We're going scouting, so, uh, we'll take...the...uh..." Adora looked at the options in the shuttle bay - some of them were just possibilities in the back of her head, waiting to be flash fabricated in the industrial replicator and launched. The main thing keeping most Starfleet ships from launching small armadas was the lack of feedstock and the perishables - each shuttle needed bits of dilithium and antimatter and other hard to create exotics to run - and the lack of crew. Since Voyager hadn't launched any shuttles, she could build...

Build a space fighter! A part of her brain whispered. Prove you're still cool.

"...the Irrawaddy!" Adora said, pointing at a Danube class runabout that they still had in dock.

"Right, the party bus," Catra said, her voice dry. "What fun."

"We're going on an information gathering mission, so, we should...get information!" Adora said, hurrying to the console and beginning to tap in the request for a sensor package. The industrial replicator in the belly of the ship started to whirr to life and several articulated limbs emerged from the ceiling and swung the sensor package down - which prompted a few of the shuttle deck crew to hurry over and do the final spot checks themselves. Adora glanced away from them and smiled at Catra, shyly. "This will help."

"Yeah, a big fancy telescope! What fun!" Catra said, waggling her hands. "Why don't we just ask the stupid Kazon what they're doing?"

"The last time we tried talking to an unknown sept, they shot at us," Adora said, frowning.

"Yeah, exactly," Catra muttered, her voice dark. "I'm sick of stupid anomalies and fucking fist contact, I want to blow something up."

Adora's lips thinned. "That's not how we do things in Starfleet."

"Yeah, I know," Catra glared at her.

Adora rubbed her palms against her face. She was getting annoyed now. Yes, she had messed up. She had said the wrong thing, badly, at a bad time. But Catra was being an absolute child about this, slinking back into being surly and ungovernable and...and...treating her like she was some kind of an authority figure. Her! Adora! Adora frowned at Catra and, speaking authoritatively, said: "Can I trust you with the piloting chair?"

Catra scowled at her.

Crap. Adora thought.

***
​

The Danube class runabout had been built and designed by Starfleet for a singular purpose: To support and extend starship operations without requiring the significant overhaul costs of building new ships. By giving each ship a few short ranged interstellar multipurpose craft, they could hypothetically rapidly expand the surveyable area that any particular exploration ship could project, while not building any new ships. Ships were, after all, a lot more expensive in terms of sentient labor and replicator time - doubly so if you counted the time spent mining and transporting dilithium and other exotics. Shuttles could be printed far easier.

The result had been fairly successful. Danubes were relatively fast, relatively tough, relatively spacious, and relatively multifaceted.

Relatively, of course, to shuttles.

Catra was thinking that as she put the Irrawaddy through her paces. She fired the RCS impulse thrusters to impart a lateral spin, then an axial spin, then started to corkscrew around wildly, her other finger pushing up and down on the power feed to the inertial dampeners, causing the sickening sway of their movement to get worse, then better, then worse again. Adora, her face going green, put her hand over her lips. "Catra what are you doing!?"

"Testing the ship!" Catra said, firmly.

The com crackled and Captain Janeway's voice came over the coms.

"Lt. Catra, are you in trouble out there?" She had the 'i'm holding a cup of coffee, do not annoy me' tone of voice that Catra had grown to respect. Catra trimmed her spins down with a few quick spurts of needle thin thrust and a expansion and strengthening of the inertial dampening field. Within a few seconds, the Irrawaddy had settled, and she was on course.

"Just making sure everything works," Catra said, her voice prim. "Don't want to go into this with a busted RCS."

"Quite," Janeway said. "Good luck, good flying out there."

The comlink clicked off, and Adora glared at Catra. "Thanks," she said, her voice dry.

"What, isn't your stomach perfect too?" Catra asked.

Adora didn't deign to respond. Instead, she brought up the passive sensors and then began to turn off ancillary systems - quieting down their emissions until they were nothing but a cold, dark, grayish block, drifting towards the planet in an oblique, quiet approach. The two women sat in quiet togetherness, with the discordant note between them adding its own nervous tension to the air. Catra frowned as she leaned back in her seat - while Adora focused in on the approaching Kazon escort and the convoy. The civilians were a ship she didn't recognize, though she did see they had a...somewhat suboptimal nacelle/hull configuration. Either they hadn't realized or didn't care that the bulk of their hull was between their two squat nacelles, with heavy struts and connectors giving the entire vehicle a smoothed, rounded ship. That assisted in making a warp field...but the lack of empty spaces and astrodynamics on the rest of the hull kept them at a piddling Warp 1 or 1.5, despite the fact their heat signatures indicated they had high powered fusion reactors.

In short: They were crawling through space, possibly because of the lack of technological sophistication in their builders.

She frowned, her scan refocusing. The main bodies of the ship were denser, thicker than they should have been. The mass and inertia was off for their builds.

"Huh," she muttered, worrying at that possibility.

Then Catra hissed, softly. "Shit!" she said. "We're getting a low level scan."

"Someone spotted us?" Adora asked - the planet, by now, was getting bigger and bigger in the forward view.

The com decided to answer that. A bored Kazon voice spoke. "Unidentified Xylion ship, immediately drop all attempts at stealth and enter a holding orbit around the planet for boarding and inspection. Any fertility tools are going to be immediately confiscated. Do not form any composite over three individuals. Repeat, do not form any composite over three individuals."

"Well, that's a lot of interesting implications," Adora said, while Catra smirked, then reached over - towards the big red alert button, which would bring up the shields.

And the main engines.

...and the weapons.

---
MOMENTUM: 0

TRAITS: None

[ ] Catra, No!
[ ] Catra, Yes!
[ ] Write In!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Catra's ears flicked.

"Catra-" Adora started.

Catra threw the ship into an immediate corkscrewing dodge - trying to bank away as the escort ship following the convoy launched a pair of sleek, deadly looking Kazon attack fighters. The two craft skimmed through space like lethal manta-rays, their curved frames and relatively simple construction belying the raw efficiency of building two phaser cannons synched right up to their dilithium stabilized antimatter reactors. It was a design that no self respecting Starfleet engineer would use, as it left the phasers entirely at the mercy of any fault between the two systems - isolated power cells provided redundancy and safety.

But if you just wanted a ship that could punch...

"Shields up!" Adora shouted, seconds before the strobing pulses of high energy particle guns started to whip past the ship, hitting the smokey, clouded surface of the planet under them. The blooms of orange fire in the clouds as the atmosphere itself lit up and crackling thunderheads flared around the ionizing radiation flashed through the cockpit as the planet spun by dizzily overhead - but a series of hard smacks to the shield meant that more than a few of those deadly bolts had hit. Adora's hand skimmed along a console-

And the wall panel next to her exploded with a spray of sparks. Molten metal splashed onto her arm and she clenched her teeth. "Emperor's wounds!" She hissed out, while Catra snapped her head back.

"Shit! Adora!" She said.

"Keep flying!" Adora said, her voice tight as her free hand skimmed along the controls. On her half of the view screen, a picture in picture view of one of the Kazon attack ships popped up. The computer targeting reticule picked out the center of the ship's mass - the most effective place for a shot...but Adora quickly retageted, her fingers punching in the commands. "Firing!"

The Irrawaddy's port mounted, fish angle lens phaser bank targeted and fired. Its beam slammed into the attack fighter's shields, which bulged, rippled, then bloomed inwards with a cracking, hazy interference pattern. For a single second, enough energy to melt bedrock kissed the brownish hull plating of the deliberately primitive craft - but then the Kazon peeled off with a spurt and hiss of needle thin, bright red impulse plumes. It was enough, their forward sensor array was a bubbling, hissing puddle of slag, drifting into space behind them.

"That's one!" Adora hissed.

"Yeah, we'll show them to fuck with-" Catra started.

And the other attack fighter came in an oblique angle. A stuttering line of pulse-fire swept before the nose of the Irrawaddy as Catra dove them forward, angling towards the smokey planet that was now to the aft of them - but the pulse fire continued tracing - and then punched hard against their fore shields. Adora re-angled as fast as she could, but red and yellow flares popped up on her LCARS systems, like her console was coming down with some kind of horrible illness. The sudden lurch and sputter made her hiss. "Fuck! Our phaser banks are down!" She said. "They slagged the hatches - we can't launch torpedoes!"

Catra growled. "Lets see if you fuckers can dance."

"Catra, they're in attack fighters, we're in a bus!" Adora said, her hand going to her arm, the pain and throbbing ache of the burn still biting deep.

"Yeah. And I'm flying it."

Catra pushed forward and the console trilled and bleeped as the Irrawaddy dove towards the planetary surface. On the sensor scope, Adora saw that one of their hostiles was peeling away. The other, the undamaged one, was right on their ass. The clouds swept past the cockpit, and then they exploded into a chaotic landscape of grayish spires and thick mountains, winding canyons, and brilliant patches of shimmering blue, greens, pinks and purples. There was no time to admire the splotches of color - they seemed to be lakes? - Catra had already hit the first canyon. The Irrawaddy hummed as its barely functional deflector shields kissed the walls of the canyon and the RCS thrusters hissed and sputtered in the atmosphere. Adora, though, had no time to focus on anything but the grim sight on her scopes.

The red dot was right behind them.

"They're behind us!"

"I noticed," Catra said as a phaser bolt whipped by over their cockpit. She started to drive bob, even weave. The nacelle almost kissed a rock formation, then she skimmed down, narrowly avoiding an outcropping of rock. Another phaser bolt slammed into the canyon wall behind them, filling the space that they had just vacated with molten slag.

Adora knew, instantly, what she had to do. She pushed three buttons, snapped. "Override alpha two two four one!" She said, then sprang to her feet.

"Adora!"

"Keep flying!" Adora shouted, drawing her phaser one handed. She set it to maximum setting, wide angle, and fired into the floor right above the torpedo tubes. The floor hissed into a shimmering cloud of noxious smoke, which the vacs started to work to suck from the cockpit as fast as possible. She ignored it as she narrowed the beam, carving frantically.

"Adora, why are you shooting holes in our own frigging ship!?" Catra hissed. "He's right ontop of my tail!"

"Computer! Activate torpedo tubes three and four!" Adora shouted.

The computer chirruped. "Confirmed. Activating tubes three and four."

The hole she had cut into the fuselage, and the screaming wind, did not stop both Adora and Catra from hearing the hissing roar of the photon torpedoes engines kicking on - as they flew backwards out of the holes that Adora had cut into the belly of the runabout. It was quite possibly the ugliest, most ungainly launch of any torpedo since the first tracking warp capable torpedo had been fired by Lt. Malcon Reed, almost two centuries ago.

The torpedoes did not so much fly at the Kazon ship as they simply tumbled backwards into it, out of jagged, still hissing holes. The Danube class had not been designed to fire torpedoes backwards. That functionality was usually constructed onto starship rated vehicles, not shuttles nor runabouts.

Still.

Adora had found a way.

The Kazon attack fighter pilot had a few seconds of confusion, seeing the phaser beams lacing from the belly of their quarry.

Then they saw the three torpedoes tumbling through the air towards them, thrusters sputtering as they tried to right themselves in the few seconds between "launch" and impact.

Then the first hit the shields of their attack craft. They started to pull up-

And the second and third struck amidships and on the wing and the entire craft heeled off, hit the canyon wall, and smeared itself almost nearly a kilometer of stone.

Adora looked at the second torpedo tube in third tube - the one that hadn't launched. She had not reprogrammed them very well, and she was not not entirely sure if that was-

The entire Irrawaddy's power system glitched out. Consoles dimmed, sensors sputtered, and for a second, Catra's barely restrained claws were skittering on unresponsive glass. Adora remembered there were reasons why people did not usually create emergency torpedo holes in their ships. She threw herself into the chair, strapping in as Catra snarled softly. "I have just enough power to keep the inertial dampener up and fire the RCS one last time!" She said.

"We're gonna crash, aren't we?" Adora whispered as the canyon slowed around them - but it was going from insanely fast to merely very fast.

Catra didn't respond. Adora clutched her wounded arm to her chest.

Ahead of them, a cave mouth was perched, a bit to the left of where the canyon veered off. Adrao was fairly sure that Catra would bank around the corner, and hope to put them down.

Catra twitched the inertial field, dragging the nose of the ship left. The cave mouth swelled, and Adora felt every second of her life pass before her eyes. Then Catra slammed her palm down on the RCS controls and the entire cave bloomed with smoke and steam and bits of debris as every last spurt of power in the flight systems slammed them to a stop. The runabout skimmed on a cushion of superheated air and agrav fields, then skidded to a stop with a screech of hull plating on stone. Then.

At last.

It stopped.

Adora sat there, panting, in the cockpit.

Catra slumped in her seat.

She blinked a few times.

Then, slowly, she leaned back in her seat, looking incredibly smug. She crossed her arms behind her neck, then looked at Adora. Then her smugness vanished - she saw the burned flesh, and the steam rising from Adora's arm. "Adora!" she said, scrambling from her seat, hurrying to her side.

"It's fine," Adora hissed, softly.

Falling back into very bad, very old habits.

---
MOMENTUM: 0
THREAT: 1
TRAITS: Adora's Burned Arm 1, Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks 1

Remarkably, your runabout CAN STILL FLY!? What do you do first?

[ ] Let Catra treat Adora's arm
[ ] Send Catra out to check where they landed, while Adora treats her own arm
[ ] Try and communicate with voyager
[ ] Throw on suits and just shoot the blockade to get back to Voyager
[ ] Write In

Spoiler: Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew! (mechanics)

The Irrawaddy starts off with Catra making an Evasive Action maneuver! She gets...0 successes! Her turn ends and things shift to the Kazon patrol ships!

Patrol ship one moves in, rolling to try and maintain the momentum! ...and they get 3 successes, okay. Thanks guys! That puts the threat pool at 3 (I spent 2 threat to spawn two attack craft), which they then spend 2 on to sustain the momentum and let their gunner take a shot at the Irrawaddy! Since both ships have the Small Craft trait, the base difficulty is 2...and they get 3 successes AGAIN! Phaser cannons have versatile, so they end up with 3 threat, which they will spend to add +1 damage for 2, and bank the remaining.

5 damage versus the Irrawaddy, which takes the ship to 50% shields and SHAKES it! Adora picks casualties and minor damage, so the ship suffers a complication - we'll give Adora Burned Arm 1. Ouch!

Now, it's the Irrawaddy's turn! Adora will fire back with phaser banks! She gets 3s, which hits despite her +1 diff for the distraction due to her burned arm. Versatile gives her 2 momentum, which she'll use to create the trait of "Melted Sensor 1" for the attack fighter she hit. The banks do 4 damage to Attack Fighter 1 - which SHAKES it as well! NPCs always take "brace for impact", so, they lose 1 round of actions.

The second attack fighter swoops in with an impulse action (a minor action), then fires their phaser cannons...and fuck off, they get 3s AGAIN!? They will spend all their momentum on damage, which drops the Irrawaddy's shields to 0! The ship is SHAKEN and then takes a breach! Adora chooses to lose power - so, no going to warp... - and then the breach hits...*rolls* THE WEAPONS! Fuck off dice!? The breach (slagged Phaser Banks 1) is equal to or greater than half the ship's scale (of 1) breaches, so the weapon systems are DESTROYED, any action involving them automatically fail

ROUND TWO

Catra refuses to surrender. She takes an impulse action to fly down to the planet's surface (a minor action), then rolls to create a disadvantage: Weaving And Dodging Through Narrow Canyons! She gets 3s vs a diff of 2, creating the trait AND gaining 1 momentum, which is banked.

Attack Fighter 1 waives off (not wanting to risk it with the sensor), while Attack Fighter 2 jinks after! Normally, impulse is not rolled (a diff 0 action), but it's now a diff 1 action! and we'll throw in +2 Complication Range! ...and the fighter gets an INSANE 4 successes! They rolled a 4, 1 and 4! NUTS!!! Still, that's 3 threat, giving them 4 threat in total. They spend 2 threat to take a second action at +1 diff, then spend 2 threat to get a "They Came From...Behind!" trait to negate that diff! Now, the dodging and weaving trait REMAINS, so the diff is a flat 3!

They fire the phaser cannons!

And roll 2 successes...and a NAT 20! I'll actually ADD +1 to their "came from behind" trait, so they're RIGHT behind the Irrawaddy!

Adora's turn! At +1 diff, she rolls, with +1 dice from using her momentum, to try and create a trait...and gets 2s! Not enough! She will spend her Determination, since I want this to succeed, for a re-roll and gets 3s! She creates a trait: "One In the Tube" - there's a single torpedo that can fire!

ROUND THREE!

A trait can make something possible or impossible - and right now, the Slagged Phaser Banks makes firing weapons impossible...and the One in the Tube makes it possible! Catra, seeing that they have 0 momentum, GOES HAM! HOG WILD! She throws down 3 threat to get +2d20 ONTOP of throwing down 3 threat to fire torpedoes...AS A SALVO!!!! So she's rolling a full 5d20 pool for this torpedo attack, with a minor action to aim!

She gets 5s (with a re-roll) vs a diff of 1! 2 Momentum! She spends the 3 momentum to get DEVESTATING ATTACK THREE TIMES!

So, the Irrawaddy's microtorps do 3 damage! The incoming ship has 8 shields, so it takes 3, 2, 2, and 2 damage. That shakes them, then breaches them 4 times! 2 breaches to structure takes it to critical damage, then the extra breaches DESTROY IT UTTERLY!

Then I, the GM, spend 6 threat to create "We're Gonna Craaaash!" 3, adding +3 diff to the normal flying roll of diff 0!

Catra rolls a remarkable 2s!

She still crashes.

Collision damage is Scale + Number of Zones moved, which is 2, for a total of 3 damage with Devastating and Piercing. This does 1 breach to the *rolls* very nice sensor package you have!

...I just realized that Catra actually got -2 diff for her shooting thanks to the "They came from behind" 2 trait, so she got +2 momentum for a total of 3, which she will spend on +2 dice for her piloting pool, getting 3s, and thus, not crashing. Goddam, Catra!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adora panted, softly. "I'm going-"

"To sit right there," Catra said, angrily. SHe unstrapped herself from her chair, slid to her feet, then hurried to the side of the Irrawaddy, where she found one of the medical kits. She wrenched it from its housing with a grunt, and then turned back to Adora, who was trying to peel her uniform arm off, wincing. Catra shook her head, then hurried to her side. "Sit still, idiot."

"You're the idiot!" Adora snapped, flushing. "We were supposed to just sneak around, see what was there, you got us into a shooting match with the local Kazon!"

"They were going to shoot at us anyway," Catra said, her voice surly as she took out a dermal regenerator. She thumbed the setting around, then picked up the hand tractor. She aimed it at the bits of metal mixed with Adora's flesh, wincing at the smell. Adora didn't handle pain like most people - she was tougher than she looked, and usually downplayed what hurt her. It still made Catra sick with fury anytime something like this happened. She started to pull the metal free with care, the hand tractor easily guiding the shrapnel out to hover in a small orb of shimmering light, while the dermal regenerator worked its magic, sealing wounds and putting fresh, pink skin over it.

Catra saw Adora untense.

She sighed, softly.

"There," Catra said, standing. Adora flexed her fingers, then sagged for a moment. She put her hand over her brow, then nodded.

"Okay," she said, quietly. "We need to...we need to figure out how to get off this planet-"

"No, we have to figure out what those Kazon were looking for. Fertility tools?" Catra frowned. "That sounded really bad, Adora."

"We have no idea what it was or what it should sound like," Adora said, then rubbed her shoulder. She looked into Catra's eyes, and Catra glared at her. Adora sighed and looked away, then frowned. "Okay, fine. Fine." She slid to the console, frowning. "Our reactor is coming back online - we took some nasty hits, but at least now the shield capacitators can recover."

"Goodie, they did us so well during the fight..." Catra muttered. Her voice grew dark. "Back in our home, void shields lasted, they could take a beating."

Adora politely didn't mention that putting a shield system like the Irrawaddy back in their home would have been nearly impossibly difficult - an example of lost technology, honestly. Instead, she began to work the console, frowning a little as she did so. The sensors began to scan the area on subspace, thermals, and similar givens - and despite the cave surrounding her, she was able to start picking up a lot of information. Catra leaned over her shoulder, her tail twitching from side to side.

"What a craphole," she muttered.

The basic summary: They had landed on what was only marginally M-class planet. It had barely breathable air, a hydrosphere of ostensibly drinkable water, and enough biosignatures that were similar in terms of chirality that the two of them could digest it...maybe. Assuming there were no additional complications.

Which is always a dangerous assumption, Adora thought.

---
MOMENTUM: 3
THREAT: 1
TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks 1

So! Adora got 2 successes on a Gather Information roll and THANKS to your sensor package, she gets +1 momentum for using sensors out of combat. Neat! Now, with this 3 momentum, you can ask THREE QUESTIONS and get answers! Since that's how gathering information works! Here's some examples!

[ ] Any local technological civilization?
[ ] Any local sentients?
[ ] Any Kazon installations
[ ] Are the Kazon hunting in this area
[ ] Did the civilian ships arrive?
[ ] What were those weird colors we flew past?
[ ] Did the Kazon pilot survive?
[ ] What happened to the other Kazon attack ship?
[ ] Write IN

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adora frowned as the high resolution scanners began to ping the surrounding area - picking up, first, energy signatures in orbit. She pointed them out. "It looks like the Kazon are running around like..." She frowned. "Huh." She cocked her head, then gestured Catra to peer down with her. Catra's brow furrowed as she saw it too.

"The civilian ships have scattered too, they're landing all over the planet," Catra said. "Like they were just waiting for the chance, huh?"

"At least one of them has landed near us," Adora said, nodding as she did so, her finger rubbing along her chin. "Hell, from the atmospheric disturbances, it looked like they came down without a breaking burn until the last second. Their inertial dampeners must be quite strong. Or they don't care about broken bones." She leaned forward, then started to focus the subspace focal lens to bring up the slightly greenish patch of biofluid that the civilian ship had landed nearby. "Huh. These puddles we flew over. They're a highly complicated kind of organic soup - I'd need to get a direct sample, but even from a distance, they look far more complex than, say, simple algaes or-"

"Okay, cool, they're here to steal weird goo, what does it do?" Catra asked, leaning against the chair.

"I don't know, Catra," Adora said, pushing her tail out of her face with accustomed ease. "We'd need to get a sample first."

"Are they all over the planet?"

"Yes, it looks like we have enough of a distribution that...they're probably everywhere..." Adora said, frowning as she tapped a few buttons. "Well, wouldn't you know it..."

"Huh?" Catra asked.

"The pilot of the attack fighter we shot down is alive," Adora said. "...and they're not Kazon."

Catra's ears perked up, immediately. "What are they?"

Adora frowned, then looked over at Catra. "...the computer says that they have the same biological signature and make up as the puddles of goo on the planet." She paused. "Green, specifically."

"Well, we gotta check this out!" Catra said, walking back and away from the chair, heading for the survival compartment. She swung it open, revealing the double Type-2 phasers that were set there. SHe yanked one down, twirling it around her fingers with a grin. Adora frowned, then stood.

"We..." She hesitated.

Catra looked at her, her ears pinning back. "We can't head back up while the orbital lanes are full of Kazon running around, poking at everything. And you've seen enough, there's something weird and fucked up going on here. We have to figure it out. Starfleet shit. Starfleet is always figuring shit out and kicking people in the dick."

"That's not what Starfleet does in the slightest," Adora said, while she walked over to stand beside Catra. Catra smirked, then twirled the phaser around, holding the handle to her.

Adora knew it was a mistake. But...Catra was talking to her normally. They were on an adventure. They didn't have to talk about the disastrous date. And Catra did make a good point - there were enough vague rumblings about what was going on here that she was...nervous. And when she got nervous, she wanted to deal with it. So, she took the phaser, holstering it at her hip, and Catra and she headed for the back. Catra added. "Besides, we'd need to fix the hole. You know. That you shot in our floor."

"It's not that big..."

"It's a hole in a spaceship, Adora..."

***
​

The figure was in a suit - helmeted and armored against light impacts, with the faint charring that could come from a slightly delayed emergency beam out, and with the steam still rising off the edges of the suit, as if its molecular cohesion hadn't exactly been as solid as it should have been. Catra and Adora peeked over the rock at them as the figure shuffled along the side of the cliff, wobbling from side to side. A soft panting and whimpering came from it - it almost sounded like crying. Adora reached down to adjust her universal translator, while Catra casually thumbed her phaser to stun.

"Catra!" Adora hissed.

"Stun, stun!" CAtra showed her the indicator.

"...why didn't it start at stun?" Adora's brow furrowed.

But the suited figure hadn't heard them, nor noticed them - it instead continued to walk. Then it stumbled. Then it stopped, then started to kick at the ground, making muffled grunting noises. Finally, it turned, walked to a nearby grayish boulder, and sat down. It leaned its helmet back, catching the glinting light of the sun - what little sun peeked through the thick, grayish clouds overhead, at least and let out a low groaning sigh. Adora shook her head.

"He looks as unhappy as we are," she whispered. "Maybe-"

"Wait, wait!" Catra hissed.

The gloved hands of the suit had reached up, taking hold of the helmet, then twisted it with a pop and a click. The helmet was tossed away with some force - the force of frustration, or maybe sorrow, taking emotions out on the world and unfeeling objects around oneself, simply for lack of anything else to target. The helmet clanked and rolled away, revealing that the head beneath was a pale, translucent green. What sunlight got through the clouds also shone through them, illuminating the faint specs of material that floated within their strange body. Despite the goo-structure, their face and features were recognizably humanoid, with eyes, with lips, with wavy impressions of what might have been hair...though it was more modeled on Vidiian hair (well, non-Phagic Vidiian hair) than on Kazon tufts.

The figure breathed slowly, then whimpered, then slumped slowly to the side, falling off the rock and onto the ground.

Then...

They poured out of the suit. Their head collapsed into a flattened lump, two eyes bobbing uselessly around, the lips remaining set and frowning as the puddle spread and spread and spread, until there was a several meter wide patch of ground covered in green goop, which had spread out to fill every crack.

"I'm so fired," the goo moaned - and their voice was high and feminine, the translator giving it that bit of gendered spin thanks to its automated psychic substrate.

Adora and Catra exchanged a look.

---
MOMENTUM: 0
THREAT: 1
TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks 1

[ ] Approach openly and diplomatically (diff 3)
[ ] Stun the goo-pilot, then get a sample! (diff 2)
[ ] Call out from cover and ensure the goo-pilot is unarmed and not going to fight (diff 2)
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adora shifted - starting to stand, but Catra grabbed her arm, yanking her down. "What if she's armed?" she hissed.

"She's a puddle of goo!" Adora whispered back.

"Did...did you not take the same SG204 as me!?" Catra hissed back. "In the Academy? Back after we got through the time warp, remember that bit?"

Adora shot her a glower. "You copied off my notes-"

"Which is why I remember a little something called Aramas."

"She was flying a primitive attack fighter," Adora hissed. "I don't think she's the psychoplasmic residue of an ascension project!"

Catra frowned. "She's an unknown alien species."

Adora sighed.

Fine.

Fine.

If she wanted to be a mother with Catra, she should at least respect her opinions. And she had to admit, Catra...had a point. SHe nodded. "You're right," she whispered back.

Catra scowled. "You always say I - wait, what?" she blinked, her ears going from pinned back to perked up.

"You're right. I'm going to make contact, but...cover me. I'll stay in cover too, we'll play this as safe as we can," Adora whispered.

Catra blinked again, her brilliant eyes glittering. Then she blushed and looked aside. "Well. Good. I wanted you to...do that." She coughed, then adjusted her phaser to wide angle and stun. Heavy stun, Adora noticed. Adora shifted in her feet and then called out past the rock she was hiding behind.

"Hello!" she said.

The goo remained still, then it rippled. "Oh god. Oh god, oh god, I...sorry, sorry, sorry! I can form bones!" She said, then started to writhe and wriggle towards the spacesuit. The fluid-creature slurped inside of the socketed neck with a gorbling noise, and then the entire suit lolled to the far side and collapsed. One arm was still empty, and the sloshing noise within made it clear that...bones were not being formed. Adora and Catra exchanged a glance, while Catra sighed, then shrugged a bit.

"Uh, it's okay. You don't have to form bones," Adora said, peeking out from behind the rock.

There was no response. The suit simply lay there.

Adora bit her lip, then stepped around the outcropping. She hesitantly walked over to the suit, then knelt down. She craned her head as Catra walked out and even her paranoia didn't have her aiming the phaser at the suit. By leaning around, Adora could see in through the neck and see that the goo within had retreated as back into the suit as she could. A pair of eyes and lips wobbled in the fluid, barely able to hold together, and the faint sound of sniffling - like crying - came from within. "I'm sorry, I'm such a wreck, I'm sorry!"

"Hey, it's okay!" Adora said, gently. "Uh. Do you want...to sit up?"

"...uh-huh..." The sad voice within whimpered.

Adora and Catra sat to either side of the suit, and Catra gently took one arm while Adora held onto the neck-hole. The suit was armored and, thus, heavier than it looked...but Catra was tough and wiry, and Adora was strong even without using her quantum-displaced alternate form. The two of them got the neck hole facing upwards, and Adora heard the sloshing sound as the goo-girl within resettled. Her voice echoed from within the neck hole.

"C-...Ca...Can you put the he-hel-helmet on? I...I can't fo...form so...so good when pe-people are...are...are..." Her voice hitched, and Adora hurriedly grabbed onto the helmet, locking it onto the neck-slot and swinging the visor down to cover the faceplate. They both sat there, listening to the gurgles within as the suit started to inflate here, sag there as bits of fluid moved within. Catra patted the girl's hand, her voice a bit gruff.

"Hey, it was a rough landing you had," she said.

The girl finally settled. Then she reached up, grabbed onto her helmet, and yanked it off - revealing humanoid features and Vidiian style hair, all sculpted from glistening, semi-transparent greenish material. She sighed, slowly. "S-Sorry about that," she said, her voice more controlled. "I don't try and go all, um, viscous on people."

"It's all right," Adora said, nodding.

"...wait, neither of you are Kazon," the girl said, looking left and right. "Nor Vidiians. You're not Haakonians, are you?"

"No," Adora said, putting her hand on her chest. "I'm Adora - this is Catra. We're from the United Federation of Planets - we serve on the USS Voyager."

The girl gasped, her eyes widening. "The Voyager!?" She asked.

"You've heard of us?" Catra asked, her eyebrow arching.

"Yeah!" The girl said, her eyes glittering. "The bow wave of your adventures is heading along subspace ten times faster than warp six - we're all getting the news. Is it true that you stopped a war between two septs and the Haakonians? And that you have a Talaxian president aboard? And you can kill Borg without even trying? And that you defeated a Viidian podmaster and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, uh, you've heard a lot and not all of it is-" Adora started.

"Yeah, basically," Catra said at the same time.

"Whoa..." The girl whispered. "Well, wait, what are you doing here? Are we in your course?"

"Basically," Adora said, blushing. "Uh. What's your name?"

The girl blinked. And for just a moment, her hair started to go all...runny, as if she had lost some focus and goo was slipping along her scalp. She shook her head and focused and her hair settled back into place as she stammered: "I-I'm Lieutenant Gelli Vlee, Xelonian Defense Force under the Sept Luran provesional government!" She said, perking up.

"Who are the Xelonians?" Catra asked.

"Oh, we're a big dangerous threat," Gelli said, nodding sagely as she did so.

"...you...don't...seem like a threat," Adora said. "Or..." She hesitated, glancing down at one of Gelli's gloved hands. Seeing the eye-flick, Gelli held up her hand, shaking her head hurriedly.

"W-Well, I mean, it's not like I'm acidic or anything, I'm not a lowlander, but, no, I mean...we, all Xelonians are a gigantic threat. That's why Sept Luran helped institute the new government, to make sure we're all kept under control to keep the whole sector safe!" She sighed, slightly. "I...a lot of my family don't understand why I signed up with the XDF, but, like..."

"What kind of threat are you?" Catra asked. "If you're not acid or something?"

Gelli blinked, her glassy eyes filled with confusion, as if she didn't see how these two people couldn't spot the issue immediately. "I'm a highly stable polymorphic gelatinous lifeform!" she said, cheerfully. "Whose capable of spontaneous and deliberate sentience mergers through physical contact!"

"...and?" Catra asked.

"A-And that's...the Borg?" Gelli pointed up at the sky. "Are right there?"

Adora and Catra exchange a glance.

Oh.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"Ah," Adora said.

The Kazon had been a dominant power in the Quadrant - technologically advanced and rapidly approaching or possibly even exceeding the Federation in many levels. How good or bad their society had been depended a lot on who you asked, with opinions varying wildly even between the Kazon themselves. That had changed when their technological developments had drawn the focus of the Borg. Within a cataclysmic three year event, the Kazon homeworld and their colonies had been rendered down and assimilated. The only survivors had been those whose technology and biology had been...uninteresting enough to avoid assimilation. Those survivors, scarred mentally and socially, had formed the Septs, and those Septs now had taken it upon themselves to ensure that such an event would never happen again.

"That's why we can't breed without their permission," Gelli said, then sighed. "I...was kind of hoping I might...b-buy a child right..."

"Ah," Adora said, in an entirely different tone.


---
MOMENTUM: 0
THREAT: 1
TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks 1

[ ] Ask her more things (gather information check)
[ ] Decide that your goal is to leave quietly and negotiate for peaceful travel through Sept Lural's territory
[ ] Decide that your goal is to free the Xelonians from Sept Lural's tyranny!

[ ] ...and you'll start by getting word to Voyager​

[ ] ...and you'll start by fixing up your runabout and finding the local Kazon security headquarters​

[ ] ...and you'll start by finding some other Xelonian rebels​

[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adora sighed, her hand going to Gelli Vlee's shoulder. Her lips turned up in a shy smile. "It's going to be okay," she said. "We're going to get you that child right. And we're going to fix this whole messed up situation. We're the Federation! That's what we do!"

Gelli gasped. "How?" she asked.

"We start by bl-" Catra started.

"-making a vox call!" Adora said, hurriedly.

***
​

Captain Katherine Janeway rubbed her temple gently as she sat beside the communications console with Tuvok and her second in command, D-91. The sleek robotic face of her second in command still managed to show annoyance, despite everything. "I sometimes wish the prime directive was more...absolutist," Janeway said, her voice soft. "In moments like this - where the edge cases ask us to pit morality and practicality. I'd put Voyager above most ships we've run into out here - but we can't take on an entire Sept. We had allies when we took on the Podmasters, what do we have out here? Some ships that make the NX-01 look advanced?"

"Indeed," D-91 said. "But it sounds like this entire species is being held hostage by the Sept's paranoia."

"I believe there may be more going on here than it seems," Tuvok said.

"Oh?" Janeway asked.

"Firstly," Tuvok said. "Prior Kazon interactions have shown their willingness to do whatever it took to ensure the Borg would not be attracted. This method is a...highly illogical one. Keeping the Xelonians from space? Limiting their technology? Preventing them from constructing warp capable craft? All of these would be more effective and less dangerous methods of reducing their chance of being detected by the Borg, assuming wholesale slaughter is beyond the Kazon's desires." He frowned. "They have done neither. Instead, they have turned them into a subordinate, client species and arranged a system by which it appears that Xelonians have to join their Sept as second class citizens and provide their industrial capacity to the Sept to have any chance to reproduce. Considering the power of the reproductive urge in all biological species, it is quite an effective lever."

Janeway nodded.

"Secondly," Tuvok said. "Consider what has happened so far. An unknown, possibly unidentified craft has breached their cordon around the Xelonian homeworld, and a convoy of Xelonian ships have scattered across the planet. Rather than calling up more Kazon frigates, or even cruisers, there instead appears to be...a single Kazon frigate and what small craft it has attempting to 'ride heard' on their charges." His impassive face remained mostly still, save for a single arched eyebrow. "There has been no sign of communications, nor sign of approaching warp signatures of reinforcements."

"Are you suggesting a single Kazon ship is holding an entire species hostage?" D-91 asked, his voice incredulous.

"There have been similar examples of this kind of extortion," Janeway said, smirking slowly. She felt as if a gigantic weight was shifting off her shoulders - but she cautioned herself not to get too hasty. "We need to confirm first."

"I propose we observe while allow our away team to gather information. But they should engage in caution," Tuvok said.

D-91 sighed. "I really wish we hadn't sent Catra."

"Lt. Catra C'nola is a relatively skilled field operative," Tuvok said. "While her irrationality is known to flare up, it is often balanced by her intelligence and her long term planning. I have confidence in her and Adora Strong."

"...why, Tuvok," D-91 said, sounding pleased. "I didn't know you liked our weirdest crew members."

"Commander," Tuvok said, his voice growing quite dry. "Vulcans tend to like all of their crew members." He turned back to the console, bringing up the tightbeam microburst transmission that had made the communication from the surface so stealthy and undetectable. "To work with people we dislike would be highly illogical, in a voluntary, self directed organization like Starfleet."

"He has me there," D-91 muttered to Janeway, who chuckled.

***
​

Adora took the jerry rigged communication bee from her ear and shut down the modified phaser bank she had aimed at the sky through the cave entrance, then turned to Gelli Vlee, who was looking with rapt attention at Catra, who was taking material from the shipboard replicator and applying it to patch up the damage done to the ship. Adora was not sure that Catra had needed to take off her top and work entirely in the undershirt, showing off her arms and the sleek stripes that added such delightful texture to her biceps and shoulders, but...well, she had done so. Now, she couldn't tell if Gelli was looking at the replicator, the repair work, or Catra's back with more rapt attention, her entire body rippling with each motion as if the clanging was transmitting directly into her.

"All right," Adora said. "Our mothership has gotten back to us - and..." She hesitated. "Is there...are...has the...has Sept Luran ever had more than one ship in your system?" she asked, curiously.
Gelli didn't respond.

"...Gelli?" Adora asked.

"Huh?" Gelli jerked her head around, blinking. "Uh, what? I...uh...solids are...uh...excuse me, uh, what?"

"Does Sept Luran have more than one ship in your system?" Adora asked.

"Uh..." Gelli blinked. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Adora asked.

"W-We Xelonians, we don't normally...that is...until we met the Kazon, we didn't form individual bodies like this very often, save for when our homes needed to be protected or expanded. We thought, and we made art, and we kept our histories alive, but everything happened within our homes. But when the Kazon arrived, we learned how to copy their body plans, a-and realized that we could walk around and see even more than we thought was ever possible, and they moved us to the other planet to work in factories and live in houses, and they kept us safe from the Borg-"

"Wait, you didn't have tools?" Catra asked. "Like scanners, or tricorders, or auspex or anything?"

"Those are all the same tool, Catra," Adora whispered.

"No, those are Kazon things," Gelli said. "Though they're so neat! I've been learning all about resisters and transistors and proto-durotronic systems, though, I hear there are even more complicated ones!"

Adora nodded, then turned to Catra. "Hows the repair going?"

"Right now? We can fly, but, uh, I don't want to put these repairs against any kind of damage..." Catra said, frowning. "If you got me six hours-"

The scanner blipped. Adora turned and frowned.

One of the Kazon attack craft was flying nearby. They hadn't found them...

Yet.

---
MOMENTUM: 0
THREAT: 0

TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks (+1 Diff to Shooting Phasers), Phased Micropulse Transmission Window 1 (Possible To Communicate With Voyager)

I've spent 1 threat to spawn one Kazon Attack Craft (since they're scale 1.) Also, I've put in what each trait does, to help remind people! And meeee!? Now, a ship can repair one breach per six hours per its Engineering stat and, TO MY SHOCK, the Runabout has 1 engineering, meaning it actually DOES have self repair capacity!
[ ] Hope to stay hidden and repair the Runabout (roll vs diff 2, getting 1/2 the time per 2 momentum spent.)

[ ] Spend Adora's determination point to add +2 successes​

[ ] Roll flat​

[ ] Focus entirely on staying hidden (roll opposed)

[ ] Spend Adora's determination point to add +2 successes​

[ ] Roll flat​

[ ] Ambush the Kazon attack craft with a torpedo and hope to not get shot! Your shields are back, after all. (+1 threat)

[ ] ...no, use ALL the torpedoes! (+3 threat, instead!)​

[ ] Spend Adora's determination point to add +2 successes​

[ ] Roll flat​

[ ] Write In!

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Lets focus on getting the Irrawaddy working again," Adora said. "Gelli, uh, you can help. We just need to refix the holes, patch the isoliner chips..." She rubbed her chin, slightly.

"What's an isoliner chip?"

"You can handle the welding," Catra said, grinning at her, as she held out her phaser. "This is a phaser - you know what a phaser is, right?"

"Ohh, yes, I've heard Kazon talk about phasers!" she said, excitedly, taking it. "They called it a boondoggle."

"Hey!" Catra scowled. "It might be more fragile and complicated than a disruptor, but that doesn't mean it's a boondoggle. Can a disruptor be set to stun? And let you capture someone to gloat over them? No, your only choices with disruptors are to disrupt or not disrupt. And what if you're fighting a pretty lady?"

Adora pursed her lips. As usual, Catra was...somehow...finding her way around to Starfleet.

...she just...did it in a very Catra kind of way.

***
​

The Kazons swept by the cave one last time - their vehicle skimming overhead. On the screen, Adora saw that the rest of the Xelonians had been snapped up. She frowned, while behind her, Gelli was saying: "And, well, I...to be honest...it's the fact that if you help the Sept, you get a right to breed, but...a-also...don't tell my parents this, but...solids are so...interesting! You have hands and can make bones, and your forms are just...it's...interesting!"

"Interesting, huh?" Catra was sounding amused.

Adora lifted her head, turning back to see the two girls were sitting beside one another, nodding as the interior of the Irrawaddy looked as good as new - the replicator and their phaser welding work combining to create a space worthy vehicle. Of course, they had only taken relatively light damage. Adora smiled, slightly, then said. "Vlee, Catra, come on. We're going to have to take off soon." She said, gesturing with her hand. Gelli stood and Catra simply bounded from sitting to landing on the chair next to Adora. Gelli grabbed onto the back of the chair, while Adora tapped a few buttons and one of the passenger chairs emerged from the floor with a soft clink.

"Oh!" Gelli exclaimed.

"We're clear to get into the air, but the Kazon skimmer is...heading back to a base," she said, frowning.

"Shall we follow him?" Adora asked.

"That should be the Sept headquarters," Gelli said, cheerfully, as Catra took the Danube into the air, the soft humming of her agrav engines all that was required to bring them up and off the ground of the cave. They skimmed out, turned, then started to accelerate near the belly of the canyon. Gelli squeaked softly, her eyes widening as her hair turned rippling.

"I...didn't realize your craft was so maneuverable!" she whispered, softly. "How advanced are you?"

"As advanced as a few billion nerds can do when given unlimited free time," Catra said.

Gelli blinked. "Uh. Did you say billion?"

Catra glanced at her. "Yeah, why?"

"...how many!?" Gelli asked.

"The federation is a big polity, but, like, a few million isn't that many, considering planetary sizes," Catra said.

"There's only a few Kazon, we all kind of assumed that solids can't reproduce very fast," Gelli said. "Since you can't just merge and grow like we can."

"We can reproduce plenty fast!" Catra said, her voice suddenly annoyed, which made Adora grin ever so slightly, her eyes glittering slightly as she glanced over at Catra. Her voice was soft.

"That we can..." Then she hesitated, turning back to Gelli, her seat swinging around. "So, wait, you're telling me there are only...a few dozen Kazon? Maybe a hundred on this planet? At most?"

"They only have one ship," Gelli said, nodding.

"And they're holding you all hostage!?" Catra asked.

Gelli blushed. "It's not...hostage exactly..." She said, shrinking a bit into her neck-hole, her head slumping in as she lost her cohesive focus in shame. Adora sighed, then turned back to the sensor. She glanced at Catra.

"Slow down, we're almost at the base."

The Irrawaddy hit the edge of the canyon and then lifted up just enough to allow the sensor array to gravitationally lens up around the corner. There was a prefabricated building, the kind of thing any decent technical civilization could create, with an attached fusion reactor and a moderately advanced automated industrial facility - but there was also several additional attachments that Catra pointed out. "Those are biological research units, i think."

"Why do you say that?" Adora asked, scanning them.

They were biological research units.

"Cause they're all round," Catra said, shrugging.

Adora bit her lip. "I'm picking up several Kazon life signatures in there - but it's hard to determine exactly how many, considering the Xelonian life signatures i'm picking up as well."

"I wonder why there are so many Xelonians in there," Gelli said, frowning. "See, the way that we breed on this planet is we take in the atmospheric particulates while...um..." She blushed. "W-While, doing...doing uh...and then there are more Xelonians! It's...you know..." She flailed her arms and shook her head, her hair wobbling. "It's-"

"Fun?" Catra asked.

"Private," Adora said, at the exact same time.

"Uhhh..." Gelli said. "Y-You two are girls! Uh. Wow! Girls! Hah!"

Coming just into view was a Kazon with a rifle and what looked like an oral drug that he was imbibing as he walked along the roof of the prefab, his scanner in one hand and sweeping around - a sentry. His rifle was clearly a ruggadized disruptor with a scope - a fairly nasty looking weapon, and considering the sheer, flat terrain around them, getting into the base without being noticed was tricky. A second sentry ambled out with the first, both looking around themselves as the attack craft that they had been trailing landed on the flat ground beside them, and hopping out came a Kazon pilot, taking their helmet off and waving up at the sentries.

...if one didn't have a transporter.

Adora glanced back at the undamaged pad in the back of the Irrawaddy, thinking.

---
MOMENTUM: 0
THREAT: 0

TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks (+1 Diff to Shooting Phasers), Phased Micropulse Transmission Window 1 (Possible To Communicate With Voyager)

There are Kazon sentries (2 spawned from the threat) and a Kazon pilot (with attack craft, still from earlier!)
What's your plan? Now, one of these plans will give you determination - the reason why is because it works into one of Catra's character flaws and, thus, creates a complication. That's how you get Determination mid mission, by letting one of your negative values impact you negatively! Neat, huh? If you work in a plan that does the same but for Adora, you can get her Determination back. Heck, you can double up, get 2 determination for your two characters! Go ham, why not!
[ ] Attack run! Go in guns blazing with the Danube, pew pew pew pew! Try and avoid blowing up the station.
[ ] Let Catra try and sneak in. Catra is positive she can sneak in (+1 Determination, Complication: Catra's overconfidence)
[ ] Transport in.
[ ] Write in

Spoiler: Rolls!

The Kazon are scanning for you, a diff 2 check, but it's +1 diff due to your cave, +1 diff due to Xelonia's unique atmospheric conditions, for a total of diff 4!

They get one roll per hour, and you have three hours of time!

ROLL ONE: 2s
ROLL TWO: 3s
ROLL THREE: 1s!

You're good to go!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Catra smirked. "I think I can get into that base, you know," she said, cracking her knuckles as she stood.

"Catra, wait!" Adora said, standing and walking past Gelli, who watched with wide, wide eyes. She took Catra's hands and Gelli, who remained on her knees and, thus, was at the exact eye-line of Catra and Adora's hands, watched their fingers interlock with fascination that was nearly unbecoming. Catra blushed, her ears flicking down as Adora looked at her. "I..." She hesitated. "You told me to be careful. And you were right." She smiled. "We're going to use the transporter. And we're going to handle this together."

Catra blushed.

"I..." She hesitated. "I want to..." She bit her lip, then stammered. "I want to be a mom. With you. Just." She blushed. "J-Just i don't want to be...her."

"Ah..." Adora said.

Gelli, her eyes wide, gasped. She put her hands over her mouth, clearly in awe. Catra noticed her and scowled. "C-Come on! Lets get this planet free to have all the babies it wants!" she said, firmly, turning and walking away. Adora bit back the urge to hastily explain to Gelli the complicated maternal lineage of both Catra and Adora, who both had had remarkably terrible parents. Genuinely, Adora wasn't sure which had been worse - and her father had managed to become a multiple time genocidal dictator over his lifetime.

Instead, she hurried to the small transporter pad, then said to Gelli. "We'll be right back."

"I'll be here! To, uh, to fly the ship if need-"

The transporter beam whirred and fuzzed and vision turned shimmering and translucent. Then everything snapped together as they appeared in a narrow corridor, adjoining a communication room. Adora had picked it quite deliberately, and she drew her phaser one handed - peeking around and saw that there were two Kazon sitting in the communication center, bringing the count up to five. She frowned, as she saw that the communications were running a double link. One of them was to a harried Kazon woman sitting on an empty bridge. The other showed a waiting signal.

"We've got all the ships back, but we're missing a fighter - the goos don't have photonic weaponry, what the fuck is going on down there, Brax!?"

"Nothing we can't handle!" The guy at the coms said. "We just need to make this one payment and we'll be swimming in it!" He grinned. "Viidian ionics, railguns, maybe some of their fancy automation-"

"They don't sell their automation!"

"They'll sell it for this shit!" The guy at the coms said.

The woman on the bridge pinched the bridge of her nose.

"...they're fucking crooks!" Catra whispered, quietly.

The comlink to the bridge shut off, as the waiting signal resolved into a smiling Talaxian wearing the uniform of a Viidian Pod-Liutenant uniform. She smiled brightly at the view. "Thank you for calling Podmaster Irdan's customer support and service byline. I'm Thexia, what medical support and automation services do you require today?"

"I would like to talk to sales, please!" the guy on the coms said, grinning. "We have a viable, highly advanced biological product to sell that no one's ever heard of."

"Hmm, and may I ask who is calling?"

"Captain Brax of Sept...Brax..." He grinned, fiercely.

"Crooks with delusions of grandure," Adora whispered. Then she heard the soft thump thump thump of angry footsteps. Echoing from around the corner, she heard a harried, female voice snarling.

"Stupid bastard, I'm going to wring his neck!"

The pilot of the attack fighter, it seemed, had arrived.

---
You've entered a "threatening circumstances", which adds +2 threat. So, I've added two more Kazon, you're welcome!

[ ] Hide (opposed stealth check) and keep listening)
[ ] Fuck it! Start Blasting! Stun them all and let Sept Luran sort it out!
[ ] Write In


MOMENTUM: 1
THREAT: 0

TRAITS: Irrawaddy's Slagged Phaser Banks (+1 Diff to Shooting Phasers), Phased Micropulse Transmission Window 1 (Possible To Communicate With Voyager)

 

[DragonCobolt]

The pilot came around the corner and Adora, thinking of the many possible ways to resolve this situation, realized something.

Sometimes, Catra was just plain right.

She aimed her phaser at the Kazon's chest and the orange skinned, green haired (well, technically, they were thick clumps of semi-symbiotic fungal growths, according to the Doctor) woman blinked at her for a half a second before Adora pulled back the trigger and her phaser put a glimmering yellow beam directly into the Kazon's chest, stopping her mid step and sending her tumbling to the ground.

"What was that!?"

The Kazon that wasn't Captain Barik emerged from the command room, saw Adora and Catra, went for his disruptor pistol, and then yelped as Catra leaped onto him. She forewent her claws for an elbow strike to the side of his head, and rode him down, rolling off his groaning, prone body, to come up into a kneeling firing position, her phaser gripped in both hands and aimed at Captain Barik, who was scrambling for his disruptor. Catra fired and her beam slammed directly into his head. The Kazon convulsed, his disruptor stuttering a few pulsed beams into the floor and wall as he collapsed, each green impact point gouting up streamers of hissing, molten metal.

Catra smirked, lowering her hand weapon.

Then a voice came over the console.

It was Kazon.

And it was furious.

"Whatever Xelonian is fucking around in there..."

***
​

Gelli Vlee was sitting at the cockpit of the Irrawaddy when she saw the two Kazon on the roof jerk, their head snapping around. Her eyes widened and she felt her body shimmer and lose cohesion - one Kazon was heading for the door, but the other Kazon, his finger on his ear, blinked, then turned and sprinted for the side of the roof. Her focus bounded around against the interior of her suit as she saw him jump off the side of the roof, catch himself with one arm, then drop and land with a grunt beside the...the...

The attack fighter!

Gelli sucked in air through every exposed bit of her body, dozens of tiny holes opening up as she forgot to use the lips that she had worked so hard on in her moment of panic. Before she could do anything, the attack fighter was in the air, its mini-nacelles glowing a dull green as it swung around and the communications crackled.

"Whatever Xelonian is fucking around in there, come out with your hands up! Now!" His furious voice boomed over the console. Gelli blinked, then gaped as she saw the sensor readouts flicking up.

The Kazon was arming the photonic cannons and...aiming them at the bio containment. There were whole schools of Xelonians in there - minds merged and peaceful, waiting to be let out and become singular again. And he was just going to...to blow them up to stop those two amazing heroic beautiful compelling solids!? Gelli wished, not for the first time, that she...she was something more than she was. Her whole life, she wanted to go around. To see things. To touch things. And the Kazon had been a chance to do that, even if...it meant everyone hated her. BUt she was still powerless, wasn't she?

"...wait a second!" she whispered. Her eyes swept over the systems on the ship. She had been watching Adora this whole time. She had been watching her fingers, and her hands, and her arms, and she had been watching what buttons she pushed. She quivered, then forced herself to breathe in through her lips. "I can do something! I can." She pressed a button, then pressed another button, then swiped her finger, grinning brightly.

***
​

Adora and Catra walked out of the building, nervously, their hands raised, as they looked up at the hovering attack fighter. The other Kazon guard on the roof came down the ladder, grunting as he landed, then started to walk towards them. "Thought you could...wait, you're not from Sept Luran," he said, blinking. "Who the hell are you two? Some...Haakonian animal rights activists or something?"

"Do I fucking look Haakonian!?" Catra snapped.

"You could be from one of their col-"

A blazing beam of raw energy lashed out from just above the craggy edge of the plateau that the Kazon criminal hideout had been built on. It swept up, hit the shielded attack fighter, blew through the shields with a crackling buzz, and then neatly sliced off a nacelle and wing surface. The ship wobbled, tumbled, spun, and crashed, drawing a skidding furrow along the grayish earth and leaving its pilot stumbling away from the impact site, looking completely dazed. The Kazon guard gaped in shock - while Adora grabbed onto his disruptor, yanked it from his hands, and Catra pulled her second phaser from her belt, aiming it at him.

"...you had a second phaser?" Adora whispered as she yanked the power core from the disruptor's backside and tossed the now useless rifle to the ground.

"I always have a second phaser, don't be stupid," Catra said, then smirked fiercely. "Now..." She said, then glanced back at the dive, then back at the Kazon. "I'm guessing that Sept Luran is not going to be real happy with you sending out to the whole galaxy that the Xelonians are here."

"And last time I checked, the Kazon don't like the Podmasters any more than we do," Adora said, her grin slow and shy.

The Kazon sighed, lifting his hands above his head.

***

​

Maje Kelkor and Captain Janeway walked together towards the transporter room. In the entire time that the conference had been going on, Kelkor had not smiled once. She seemed as severe and taciturn as anyone that Janeway had met - and that included literal Vulcans. But despite that, a sense of confident pride radiated from her as she walked with her hands clasped behind her back. "I, once again, must give you my Sept's undying gratitude, Captain Janeway," she said, seriously. "We take our ancestral duties to safeguard the genomic security of this region of space quite seriously - even if...our...current troubles have made some of our number...lax."

"I once again say that it is better to seek reform than carceral punishment," Janeway said, her voice firm and as non-judgmental as she could. "We in the Federation long ago learned that punishment does little to deter future crimes - and in cases like this, you want to ensure that repetition is avoided, not merely retribution."

"Hmm," Maje Kelkor said, firmly. "Now, as it is, we will be allowing the Xelonians to return to their world. Most of them are not interested in anything beyond their puddles. Which we are grateful for." She frowned. "But there are some that wish to be solids. To engage in the technology that they have witnessed. This...is a threat. To all of us."

"That, I hope, we can assuage you on," Janeway said. It had taken a solid six hour plunge through every piece of Voyager's databanks to finally pull out the one example. She pursed her lips ever so slightly as she said: "While I am not pleased to say it, a Starfleet ship carrying several Mellanoids, a similar biomorphic species in the Alpha Quadrant, have been assimilated by the Borg. While the Xelonians are unique, they are not as fascinating to the Borg as you may fear."

Maje Kelkor pursed her lips. "As you say," she said, sounding...entirely unconvincined.

Janeway shook her head, then gestured her onto the transporter pad. Standing there, Kelkor said: "I must inform you, Captain Janeway, the only reason we leave without drawing blades is this: You are soon to be leaving Sept Luran space. If we find your vessel here again, my fellow Maje will be less lenient than I. Do you understand?"

"I do," Janeway said.

The transporter shimmered and the Maje was whisked away.

Janeway sighed, softly, then tapped her badge. "Neelix," she said, quietly. "By your estimation...is she serious?"

"Oh, without a doubt," Neelix said. Then, chuckling. "I'm looking at the reasons why right now."

Janeway pursed her lips - weighted her options, then smiled. She tapped her combadge again. "Janeway to bridge - get us the hell out of here, Tom."

"Aye captain."

***
​

Adora and Catra walked out of Neelix's bar, hand in hand, Catra's tail looping around Adora's back as if she wanted to never let her go. The two had eyes only for one another as they walked out of the bar, and to their quarters. Neelix kept polishing his glass, then smiled and walked around the counter, heading to the table where Gelli Vlee, in her brand new Starfleet uniform, was watching the two girls, her entire head starting to drip and run with a lack of attention.

HIs voice was playful. "You know," he said. "The Federation is a very interesting place."

"H-Huh?" Gelli asked. "What? I wasn't staring! A-Also, hi, I'm Gelli!"

Neelix chuckled, then sat down. "I know! You introduced yourself when you walked in," he said, his eyes sparkling. "This ship, this Voyager, can be pretty overwhelming. But you're not the first stray that they've picked up, and you're not going to be the last. So, I hope, when you see another new oddball sitting in this bar and not talking to anyone, you'll do for them what I'm going to do for you."

Gelli smiled, shyly. "R-Right! ...what are you going to do for me?" she asked.

Neelix leaned in, whispering. "The Federation is, generally speaking, open to polyamory. If you're brave enough to ask. The worst thing that happens is they'll say no, very politely."

Gelli blinked at him. "W-What's polyamory?" she asked, hesitantly.

Neelix rummaged around in his pockets, found a padd, then brought up a guide that he had written on Federation mores and social norms, with help from T'are and Tuvok - Tuvok had mostly handled a rather exhaustive description of certain 'booby traps' of conversation that often cropped up, with help cribbed form Tellerite and Andorian faux passes. He handed the padd to her, and then skimmed it with his finger, then tapped at the frank paragraph written by T'are (edited by him.) Gelli read it, then her eyes widened. "Oh!" she said.

"Yes, you can keep the padd, too, they replicate them by the dozens," Neelix said. "Something about preferring tactile data transfers - I once asked and Tom went on this tear about the 'artificial inanity plague' of the early 21st century...humans are just...fascinating." He shook his head. "And terrifying. But that's what makes flying on this ship fun, eh?"

Gelli nodded. Then she stood. "I-I'm...going to ask them! Right now!"

"Well-" Neelix started, but Gelli was already on her feet and running towards the door. Neelix ran after her - but she was down the corridor before he could reach it.

The door to Catra and Adora's rooms opened - and Catra, looking quite annoyed and dressed in a slinky piece of red lingerie that stopped about half an inch below her thighs and was sheer enough to see and count every single one of her faint tiger-stripes, stepped up to it. "Yes, what!?" She asked, looking around. And saw nothing. No one. She scowled, then shook her head. "Adora, the door chime is on the firtz, we have to bother Belanna."

"Later, right?"

"Of course! After dinner, breakfast and lun-" The door shut.

And Gelli Vlee, whose puddled form covered a good portion of the carpeted hall, whimpered and sighed.

I'm so... her eye rolled over, checking the padd for the right term. ...gay. That's it. I'm so gay.

ROLL CREDITS​

Hmm...can't think of a vote for the next episode opener.

Oh, I know!

[ ] NC-17 XXX NSFW
[ ] TV PG

Spoiler: Pew Pew Rolls!

Adora starts by stunning the pilot: 2s means a hit with 0 momentum, doing a 5 severity damage. As the NPC is nothing special, she cannot avoid an injury and is instead KO'd!

The turn passes to the Kazon. One of the Kazon in the security room takes a minor action to jog over to see what's what. This puts him in the same zone as Catra, so using his Disruptor pistol would be diff 3. He chooses, instead, to take a swing, making an opposed melee check - Catra will spend 1 momentum for +1 dice and gets 3s, seeing the diff at 3, eat shit. The bad guy rolls, gets 2s, and this means (since it is opposed) Catra "succeeds" in hand to hand combat with 1 momentum! With 2 momentum banked, she counter attacks and he goes down with a Severity 3 stun attack.

Then things go back to Catra and she zaps at Captain Barik! She gets 2s and pays off the complication by giving me, the GM, 2 threat!

Back to the NPCs! One of the two guards on the roof takes a major action to sprint to the attack fighter! He gets 1s, which he spends to negate the fact it's a quick drop down - he lands on the fighter and then spends 2 threat to maintain initiative! He takes a minor action to take off, then a major action to try and intimidate everyone by threatening the tanks! He gets 2s on his intimidation, which, next round, will be what Catra and Adora will have to roll against to best!

...but there's one more PC left, to act before the final NPC.

Gelli! Gelli VLEE! Yes! She's a PC now! She's going to spend a determination to get +2s and fire the phasers on the Irrawaddy! +1 diff for the slagged banks, but she rolls 3 successes on the dice, +2 successes for her determination, for 5 successes against a diff 3 check! 2 momentum +2 for the phaser allows her to add +1 damage and do a "devastating attack", doing a total of 5/3 damage, which drops the shields to 0, shakes the target, and that's TWO breaches, both to the Engines, giving it "Shot Off Wing" 2, which conslusively puts paid to that.

The final NPC surrenders.