A dirty Ferengi (no offence Garry) was running an establishment for the scum of the earth - smugglers. I was convinced that there was something fishy going on. A quick scan of the gambling tables showed that they were rigged, the holodecks were drawing power from the life support systems and the Romulan ale didn't have the proper Federation seal of approval on it!
Exposed as the true fraud that he was, like any mongrel Ferengi (no offence Garry) he caved as soon as I threatened to bring in the occupational health and safety officer. To get on my good side he alerted me to a meeting taking place below decks, near the cargo holds.
And that's where the fun all started. You see, there were Klingons everywhere. Angry Klingons. Bit redundant the angry bit I suppose. In any case, it was quite the battle to fight past them all, but eventually we made it to the cargo hold.
The getaway vehicle wasn't manned for long, and then it was just a matter of finding out just what was going on down here. Well what a mess! There was a miserable stinking Ferengi (no offence Garry) making deals with a high ranking Klingon Swordmaster!
And to make matters worse, the Swordmaster Bat'lethed me to near death! Anthi (what a gal) used her Andorian aggression (and dual disruptor pistols) to save the day!
But the real kick in the face was having to be revived by our science officer. I'm never going to live this down, I just know it. Yes, Garry, it's officially logged that you revived me from near death.
Well, after brushing myself off we looked around a bit and found a prisoner in a cell. I decided to beam the prisoner back to the ship to interrogate them properly. It's important to do these things professionally and personally in these sorts of situations.
After quite some time she finally revealed it all. The plot, that is. Of course. The Klingons were plotting with an Orion pirate cartel. She didn't know much about what it was that they were doing, but her boss figured she still knew too much so had locked her up. We warped off to a known Orion stronghold.
Often called the pentagon of the smuggling world. Five Orion smuggling bases on five large asteroids. With a little diplomacy and a photon torpedo or two, we managed to find out a little more information about what was going on. Several alien devices had been recently found. The Klingons were providing security for the back stabbing, money greedy Ferengi (no offence Garry) who were looking to sell the location of the objects to the Orions, who had the necessary equipment to relocate the devices for an undisclosed buyer.
They refused to tell me who they were selling to, but did give me a place to meet up with them. So off we went. "It's a trap!" Anthi said. "Probably, but don't worry about it." Said I. "Worried? I can't wait to try out the new phaser banks!" Ahhh Anthi.
Indeed, it was a trap, but we found the culprits...
Nausicaans. Their little fighter craft were no match for the new phaser banks. From the debris we managed to pull some computer records, Dwight had managed to do a computer link up for a few seconds while the shields had failed on one of the vessels. Reggie then scanned the databases and star charts to get the locations of the two alien artifacts.
We took the information to a nearby starbase to get further orders.
We were asked to inspect the alien devices. Any Nausicaans would have to be killed on sight, apparently they would certainly be looking to weaponise the technology rather than just studying it. Typical aliens (myself excluded), the wonders of the universe all laid out to investigate and for sure all they would think of were new ways to kill people. Our mission is to explore, to examine, to learn, to become a better race, and make the galaxy a better place.
Our orders: we were to kill anybody we found nearby, tag the alien devices and transport them to a Federation weapons research facility as secretly as possible.
We completed part of our orders. We killed all the ships we saw there. The alien device was like an angle bracket holding a planet in position. Reggie did a detailed scan of the gravimetrics of the situation, Dwight and I looked at some of the engineering details. The result was that the planet was devoid of life now, but at some stage, as the sun progressed to dim from a fairly yellow G type star to a much dimmer K type star, the orbit of the planet had to be readjusted to keep it getting enough radiation. The alien angle bracket was the answer.
We catalogued all we could, and took several of the key components, like the magnetocyclogravitrometricon and the red button from the central console. I couldn't think of any way to turn a device that can move the orbit of a planet into a weapon. Anthi could.
The location of the next artifact was in the rings around a technologically advanced society. They had nearly completely covered the surface of their planet in cities, you could see the bright lights, particularly of their ring-shaped vehicular access systems from orbit.
You could also see approaching Nausicaan battle cruisers.
We were too late, the next artifact had already been transported, we got the coordinates from the captain of the battle cruiser in return for not testing out Dwight's new idea for high yield torpedo spreads.
We dropped out of warp early because Reggie had picked up an incredibly high radiative flux of unknown origin. We passed the debris of several Nausicaan ships and Dwight boosted extra power to the shields as we investigated.
That was a Borg Sphere! Scans confirmed that it was leaking Zergani radiation at an extraordinary rate. Enough radiation to eventually leak through and cause warp core explosions. Yikes. We decided to beam over a small chunk rather than towing the whole thing. Now that we had the information Starfleet wanted we zipped off to the super secret weapons facility, so secret that you have to fly via three different star systems just to get to the place where they tell you the position of the stars relative to the facility. Reggie took ages in astrogation to then put together an idea of where it was.
It's so secret that they've even steered clear of the typical starbase structure so that any accidental passers by won't recognise it as what it is.
It's SO secret that they wipe your computer records of visiting the place when you leave and there's talk of using Vulcans to wipe your mind clean as well. Here's a picture.
Our next mission was a mix of fun and danger. We had to help out a diplomatic conference that was under attack by Klingon marauders who had already massacred part of the population and had planted charges on several buildings ready to blow them up. They threatened destruction and mutilation to any who dared oppose them. Also, the planet has nice beaches.
We phasered, disruptored, vaporised and terrorised the Klingons until we found their leader.
He was putting on a sissy voice saying things like "I'm a Federation ambassador, I like peace and tribbles and walks along the beach." We shot him. Anthi kicked him in the head. I'm not sure in the heat of battle in which order those things happened.
As a reward for saving all the ambassadors, we were sent on a couple of easy missions. One was to participate in the annual Starfleet Scavenger Hunt. Our local fleet had to find a planet that was the same colour as our ships. Most have it easy in grey, the Determination's purple colouring took a little more work, but we did it, another important interstellar mission completed. Surely my work must be earning me points somewhere in command.
Now I'm sure you're wondering what the doom and gloom was at the beginning of the log entry. Well, we've been at war with the Romulans on and off since we met them. Finally it looked as though peace may have been on the cards. Pro-Consul T'Naf had lost her pet tribble. Word was out through the sector that she had offered any reward for the safe return of her beloved pet. Starfleet believed that this would be a great way to make diplomatic inroads and ordered the fleet to try and find the tribble.
We found tribble-like signs on just about every world we visited, they're so wide-spread. I logically deducted that a planet on which there were NO tribble signs might actually be the place to go. Reggie looked at me kinda funny. We beamed down to a planet that had no tribble scan signature. It did have some really odd floating jellyfish type things, the atmosphere was super dense.
Wouldn't you know it, we found a secret underground base! Deep inside, where the super thick atmosphere and layers of Ubdensinium ore had blocked our scanners I found...
He is soooo cute. We warped off to find the Romulans.
And that, my friends, is the last image we have of the Determination. A brave ship, with a magnificent crew. Sure most of the old crew had died horribly to the Borg, but the new crew was great. With possibly the exception of Garry.
You would never believe it, except that the black box recording has it on tape, the Romulans were lying! They fibbed about the tribble! No sooner had we given our co-ordinates than a whole stinking Romulan war fleet decloaked and fired before we could even get the shields up!
Yes, that flaming debris is all that is left of the U.S.S. Determination. As I ordered the evacuation to escape pods I thought I overheard Garry saying something about this being his chance to be promoted in the same way I had been. I'm not sure I liked the sound of that.
Anyway, I'm making this log from the surface of the planet closest to where the ship was destroyed. Anthi is with me, I'm not sure about the others. Not the best end to my first starship captaincy. Here's hoping that Starfleet got the mayday transmission that Reggie managed to send out before we left the bridge in an orderly fashion.
It's not the worst planet to be stuck on, there is plant life and water to be found. I guess we just sit and wait and hope for retrieval. I mean, who would have thought that the Romulans, after all this time, could still come up with such a brilliant way of pulling the wool over our eyes. Genius!
Well, this could be it. If anybody finds this log, please make sure it's humbly transmitted to the Starfleet heroes hall of fame, don't worry about including a postage paid return slip.
Sparky... out.
Stardate 87723.98
Captain's Log: Supplemental. Oh, and I kept the tribble.
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