Personal Log, USS Sarek - Lieutenant Solla Payat
Ah! Fresh air, finally. After weeks cooped up on the Sarek, it's good to get out and stretch my legs. It's really gracious of the Liao to let us relax on their planets. Somehow I've managed to convince the captain I can handle a solo hiking expedition on the Laian's moon, Loon. I should note it's airless, so this is more dangerous than a typical hiking trip. Sorry dad!
Only problem I've had so far is the ground is
really slippery. It's actually quite interesting, it's because a comet impact spreaAOOOOOOOOOO
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Captain's Log, USS Hood - Captain Xuggaed
So, the return of Korrinna Hayant has really got the Orions deep-diving into their history to find clues. They've been way better at it than ever before because they've actually got like, a functioning government to fund stuff. I mean the Federation is helping, but I don't want to diminish the work they're doing. They've found some interesting stuff, but most of it is unrelated to the hunt for the Empress. So that information is passed onto vessels like us to go check it out.
Our current mission was started because data archeologists turned up old social media profiles with the 'current system' field set to 'Mollet'. This is a surprise to Union record-keepers, as no colony (or anything else of note) is known to exist there. Let's go find out if there's something more than a memory.
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Captain's Log - Prospector Morrqi mor Larrar - Petty Officer Obin Perrigen
That is the closest I have ever come to dying due to nausea.
We have encountered… something out here, in the oort cloud of an uninhabited system. A powerful anomaly that we basically tripped over with short-range sensors. Upon approach our ship experienced major failures in navigational systems, some damage to other critical systems. And our crew experienced incredible disorientation and nausea. Something about the anomaly makes our guts flip. If it wasn't for our momentum carrying us out of the anomaly, we'd wouldn't have been able to escape.
This is way outta our league. Let's log this and make it someone else's problem.
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Captain's Log, USS Justice
We have taken aboard Rear Admiral sh'Shanton of Starfleet Tactical and Federation Ambassador M'Murr and are headed for Gornar. Commodore Saavik thinks the Gorn may be able to assist us in this crisis. I suppose I see the logic - they fought the Orion Empire before, so they'll want to work actively to stop any rebirth of the Empire, and they may still have tactical advice for fighting Imperial ships.
Still, it feels off, heading
away from the fight, just as we're starting to step up our harassment campaign.
I go where I'm ordered.
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Captain's Log, USS Sarek - Captain Samyr Kanil
There are things I enjoy doing on vacation. Staring down the battlefleet of an affiliate is not one of them. To say the Liao are angry would be similar to observing that a supernova is energetic.
One of my crew was hiking on Loon when they tripped. They ended up bouncing some distance down a hill, and struck several objects at the bottom. Those objects turned out to be the remains of the first Laio landing site on the moon. The Laio school group that was visitng the site then documented her dazed stumbling, including collapsing the base of the original lander and becoming pinned underneath. We automatically beamed her back to the
Sarek when we detected the breach in her suit.
Saving her life was apparently not the right decision, as the captain of their flagship is angrily demanding that Lieutenant Payat be turned over for immediate interrogation. Pictures of her shattering the containment dome around the remains of the first Laian flag placed on Loon are everywhere on social media. Not the part where she's bug-eyed and gasping for non-existent air as her suit helmet shatters, of course.
To improve the diplomatic situation, the Horizon have arrived and begun asking questions about mediating.
I understand the frustration of the Laians. This is akin to erasing Buzz Aldrin's footprints. But despite the furor, it was an accident. I am not turning over my Lieutenant to mob justice.
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Captain's Log, USS Hood - Captain Xuggaed
Mollet's the kind of system no one cares about. Got a dozen planets, none of them habitable, none of them holding particularly special resources. For the Orions craving all the gold and the riches the galaxy could afford them, there wasn't much worth checking in the system.
Which meant they totally overlooked a research colony in the depths of Mollet V's icy moon, Mollet V-III, also known as Teardrop. Lieutenant Geriit's deep thermal scans have located a frankly pretty rad city built into a deep sea canyon.
They didn't respond to a request to have a chat so I beamed a team down. They immediately got stuck in the middle of some kind of war. Railguns were firing off, someone was pushing a stroller along and then they started firing on the away team with a shredder hidden inside, you know, regular day-to-day stuff. It's all pretty regressed from the Orion empire. Like, no one's spotted any energy weapon yet.
The city doesn't flood from all the high-energy projectile fire thanks to the drones of the original inhabitants, working hard even as a centuries old political dispute keeps causing major damage. But maintenance is failing, and the fighting is going to cause a total collapse of the colony.
Also, they shot Commander Valen. That isn't cool.
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Tactical Officer's Addendum, USS Hood - Lieutenant Commander Valen
I agree with the Captain's assessment of the circumstances surrounding my injury.
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Captain's Log, USS Endurance - Captain Abigail Taggart
Now we are going to see if the intelligence we beat out of Boreth is accurate.
Ascendant's extrapolated course passes by one of the systems identified as the site of 'number eight cache' by Klingon records. Because unlike the Empress we do not have to evade Commodore Saavik, we were able to rush to the location.
Agile is currently lying in wait in-system, while we are luxuriating in deep space on low power mode. I'm looking forward to a ship temperature just above freezing in most exterior sections for the next four days. Someone suggested I trade my quarters from some of the junior crew in the interior section, but that doesn't seem proper. If a Captain goes down with her ship, she suffers with it too.
… now that being said, If those records were drunk stories some Klingon made up, I'm getting a time machine and someone is catching hands.
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Captain's Log - USS Pleezirra - Captain Maria Volkov
We've rushed to the anomaly identified by the Morrqi mor Larrar. I can confirm that entry into the anomaly is
very nauseating. Veered a shuttle into the area of effect and was rewarded with the sensation that my brain was in my stomach for my efforts. Doctor Tigran believes that the anomaly's gravitational disturbances are somehow causing issues with everyone's inner ear and nerve endings. While very interesting to the doctor, it does not help us with our study.
Lieutenant Commander bev Greg in Science believes she may have a solution, but the modifications it would require has Chief Vũ pulling his hair out.
Commander Le Guin has expressed concern about my plan, as is his duty. But for the safety of navigation in this region, I am committing to finding the source of this anomaly.
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Personal Log, USS Justice
I do not understand the Gorn Hegemony. Oh, on the surface, it's simple enough - the King rules, the bureaucracy executes his directives. Only ... we cannot get an audience with the King. We cannot get an audience with his Queen of Foreign Affairs. We
can get an audience with the Queen of the Collegium of War, but she offers platitudes and then as soon as we get to specifics directs us to the Chancellor, who we
can't get an audience with. We cannot even get an audience with the Court Councillor for the Royal Navy Archives. Every attempt we've made to schedule a meeting has failed. How busy can they be?
... judging by the schedule Ambassador M'Murr sent me, apparently quite busy. With balls.
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Captain's Log, USS Sarek - Captain Samyr Kanil
I initially considered using our synthesizers to recreate the damaged artifacts and silently replacing them. Commander Straite strongly advised against this course of action.
Unfortunate, because we are running out of time to resolve this situation. Every moment I remain silent I only add to my officer's guilt in the eyes of the Liao. The Horizon Ambassador is implicating us in a coverup, and making accusations that I will slip away without facing up to what my officer did. And that officer is too busy in sickbay to defend herself.
There is no easy trick out of this. There is no avoiding the fury of the Laio -- their explorers have been weapons hot for a full day now.
I will face them as openly and honestly as possible. I just hope they pick some fast-burning material when they decide to torch me at the stake.
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Captain's Log, USS Hood - Captain Xuggaed
So I figure, what's the best way to end this tug of war? Well, if you don't have a rope, there's nothing to war with, right? Since they'd forgotten how to establish any sort of transport inhibitor, I just beamed all their guns away. Then I beamed myself down and got ranted at about taking guns away for a pretty long time before I could let them know that uh, the Empire is dead but the Union is happy to have them. So long as they aren't trying to kill each other.
But, I got them to finally start coming around. Most of the people there were actually pretty cool on leaving leave once I told them they could return to Orion society at large and leave a city that was about to be more water than people. The rest of them were pretty willing to lay down arms without so much population strain. Well, and most of the agitators leaving.
As part of sealing the deal, they invited me to play several rounds of a game that resembled Solarian golf. I am really bad at it, but everything's good when it's peace, right? Probably flattered them anyways.
Hood will remain to keep that peace until an Orion Union cultural team can help further integrate Teardrop. The Motarr government is apparently ecstatic that they can welcome an imperial colony back into the fold. And because they're kinda nice people once they stop shooting, Teardrop turned over interesting biological and geothermal research in the thousands of years they've been out of contact. Should be fun reading with my science officer.
[+5pp, +5rp]
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Captain's Log - USS Pleezirra - Captain Maria Volkov
Chief Vũ cursed his workload the whole way, but we have now modified the shields to amplify a micro cochrane field that counters the effects of the anomaly. Then I had him harden all our systems, so we don't have a scare like the prospector and lose environmental control - or worse.
We have, of course, attempted to use probes to determine the nature of the anomaly. However, soon after entering the anomaly, we lose contact with them. Recovery is very difficult from that point, and we have only retrieved three. Their sensor data is complete trash. This has only raised the unease among my senior staff about my own plans to bring Pleezirra into the affected area, despite Vũ's assurances his modifications will hold.
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Captain's Log, USS Endurance - Captain Abigail Taggart
I owe the Guardians at Boreth some bloodwine. Five days into cold coffee, we detected the power signature of the
Orion Ascendant approaching our location. We had her course pegged to a moon of the outer planets, matching records of 'Depot 8' we had recovered. I had
Agile emerge from hiding and take position.
Endurance galloped out to join them. My plan was to avoid a direct conflict with the dreadnought, and instead would harass and delay it until Task Force Burgundy could arrive. Unfortunately, the Empress declined our invitation and instead turned away at maximum warp.
In a way, it's fortunate for the Empress. There was nothing to recover. We scanned the moon carefully and confirmed the exact location of Depot 8. The facility was a disaster. Most of the interior was destroyed by heavy tetryon fire, indicating the belligerents had been Hur'q janissaires. We found bodies of Klingon warriors, Orions bearing patches matching descriptions of the infamous Traitor's Company, and Gorn. We suspect that Depot 8 was fought over between the three factions at some point after the Hur'q abandoned the Alpha and Beta quadrants.
Much of the equipment was clearly destroyed in the struggle, and as near as we can tell the survivors -- if there were any -- would have only salvaged some less-valuable foodstuffs. If the three factions had worked together instead of murdering each other, they would have walked away much richer. Rich enough that Commander T'Toia believes they could have founded a lasting Great Power in the post-Hur'q chaos.
Instead, their legacy is nothing but stellar dust and bones.
[Orion Empire Cache Retrieval Stopped, Eternal Empire Depot 8 Searched]
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Captain's Log, USS Justice
Rear Admiral sh'Shanton and I have just concluded a particularly productive meeting with the Vice-Chamberlain of War, Ss'witto, who I am told is an acquaintance of Ashtarr, the emissary who helped re-establish relations between the Federation and the Gorn.
Ss'witto believes he can get us permission to consult the Royal Naval Archives, and says he will discuss with his superiors the possibility of the Hegemony forming a task force of their own to fight Empress Hayant. In return, he simply asked for us to bring him along to one of the state balls. Apparently, the chance to help take down an upstart Orion princess is motivation enough.
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Captain's Log, USS Sarek - Captain Samyr Kanil
My entire week -- the shore leave we planned -- has been eaten up as I appeared on Laio talk shows, streaming media video, podcasts, and every outlet my Operations officer could find to give interviews. I apologized profusely on behalf of the officer involved. But I decided a gamble was best and extended an argument -- that by destroying the site, my officer had reminded them better awaited.
It worked. Not everyone is happy. But the current of discontent at the relatively small achievements of the Laio next to Starfleet was driven home as I listed off the strange things I'd seen in my service with Starfleet. The image of my own footprints at the base of a mountain of diamond on an airless moon particularly stuck with the Laian public. They wonder now if their veneration of their exploratory past matters when the future offers them the infinite.
At the very least, their ships have stood down. No one is calling for Lieutenant Payat to be turned over for people's justice. Indeed, among a few radical groups, she has emerged as the 'Torchbearer of Progress', an ostentatious title I will remind her of constantly.
Any further issues are best left to the FDS. Helm is to set course for the frontier and engage.
[+15pp]
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Captain's Log, USS Justice
For the record, sh'Shanton and M'Murr signed off on my plan. They bear as much of the blame for this mess as I do.
As I understand it now, bringing Ss'witto as our guest to the Tercentenary Ball of the Winter Court was a grievous insult to the Queen of the Collegium of War, to her cousin the Privy Councillor of the Bursary, to the Crown, and to the Gorn Kingdom as a whole. The guards barred me, Ss'witto, and the Ambassador from entering. Apparently sh'Shanton is of noble blood, through a connection to the Andorian Imperial nobility, and so is allowed through. Perhaps she'll be able to salvage the situation.
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Captain's Log - USS Pleezirra - Captain Maria Volkov
Even with Vũ's hardening, and the finest work from bev Greg to keep me from feeling as if my stomach was being used as a violin string, we were unable to prevent the anomaly from affecting the ship's navigational computer. I guess it will be unexamined.
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Personal Log, USS Justice
Ss'witto thinks he might be removed from office tomorrow. So much for Gorn help.
To hell with monarchy.
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Captain's Log - USS Pleezirra - Captain Maria Volkov
I am hoping you will indulge my joke. We found a solution. That solution was manually plotting a course using old methods and some excellent optics-only flying by Conn. We aimed for the center of the anomaly, and found it was generated by a very old vessel, not matching any known records. Vũ and Le Guin examined the wreck in a modified work bee, and reported that the ship had been damaged by a breach in a deuterium tank that lead to a hull rupture. Their shielding against their own distortion was damaged, and the crew was instantly incapacitated. The lucky died of heart attacks from the stress. Most died a slow death in agony of starvation.
Due to this disturbing confirmation of Le Guin's fears, and reports our own shielding was degrading at a noticeable pace, I agreed that it would be best for the safety of our ship and the people of the galaxy to disable whatever was causing this.
Vũ and bev Greg determined it was from a machine with a small, shimmering pyramid in the center. Upon removal of the pyramid, the distortion field dropped.
We have towed the derelict to a nearby Starbase. Researchers there, in safe orbit of a far moon in the system, have attempted to bring the distortion machine back online. All attempts have failed at this time. Despite the fact we cannot replicate the machine's function, I am told it will yield insights into stealth protocols for Starships and also how to shield against anomalous effects.
[+10rp]
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Personal Log, USS Justice
Long live the King, and long live our friendship with the Gorn Hegemony.
After our disastrous appearance at the Tercentenary Ball, any hope of getting support from the Gorn seemed lost. Ss'witto's removal from office was indeed announced the next afternoon. But Admiral sh'Shanton was able to speak with King Sorsharnn at the Ball of S'Yahazah yesterday, and not only is he going to reinstate Ss'witto, he has also directed that the
entire Royal Archives be made fully available to us.
[leads found]
