The Big Score

Posted on Jan 05, 2016 @ 6:03pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Promethean

"THE BIG SCORE"

(Continued from "Cleaner Than When You Found It")

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Location: Space
Scene: Starfleet, en route to Earth


EXT. SHOT FROM THE REAR OF THE FLEET.

There are dozens of starships moving through space. It's Starfleet, engaged on its voyage home to Earth. Their silvery hulls glint in the light of distant suns as the starfield melts and flows around them, white streaks of light showing us that they are moving at warp speed. Although they are moving away from us, we keep pace with them, and slowly start to ZOOM in on one particular ship.

We pass by a Sovereign-class battleship, a smaller Ambassador-class cruiser, and a dangerous-looking gunmetal grey Galaxy-class starship with violet nacelles, but our destination is none of these starships. Instead, as we continue to close in, we can see a large Hippocrates-class hospital ship in the midst of the fleet. She has a huge circular dome instead of a saucer, and a large bloated body, with two heavy nacelles that terminate in large circular plasma manifold exhausts.

It is the starboard of these plasma exhausts that we are zooming in on. For there, unbeknownst to the rest of the fleet, hangs a small privateer ship, dwarfed by the enormity of the starships around her. She is about the size of a large Runabout, and her nacelles are a a pair of gull-wings attached to a body pitted with scars and blackened with old battle damage. A sickly-green nimbus of metaphasic shielding encircles her even as she latches on to the larger hospital ship with a flickering tractor bay.

It's a strange sight, and we know instinctively - that little ship shouldn't be there at all.

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Location: USS JENNER, en route to Earth
Stardate: 2.160105.2200
Scene: Sickbay at night


Night in the starship's sickbay was not something governed by natural circadian rhythms, but regulated by the gentle beeping of the three biobeds that loomed in the gloom like a trio of stone sarcophagi.

Captain Cassidy Rainner stepped over the insensate form of the night nurse that lay in a heap on the carpeted floor. The young Terran man had had just enough time to register his shock at the sudden appearance at two shimmering transporter beams in the middle of his sickbay, before Rainner's stun shot had hammered him dead centre of his chest, bludgeoning him into unconsciousness.

Moving quickly, Rainner moved past the three biobeds while Evaer, her first mate, unslung his shoulder bag, opened the ball-sized portable isolinear flash drive within, and prepared his transporter tags. She threw a quick glance into the sickbay's office space, but it was also empty. Everyone was asleep.

"Look!" whispered Evaer, throwing a nod at one of the sleeping forms on the biobeds. "She's Bolian."

Rainner rolled her eyes. Like every Bolian in the quadrant, Evaer was still high from the recent breaking of the siege of his homeworld. Not a people normally renowned for their martial spirit, the Bolians had somehow managed to stave off a Romulan invasion fleet that had been poised to reduce their homeworld to slag. Now it seemed that every blueskin fancied themselves a warrior akin to Kahless the Unforgettable.

"We're not here for her," hissed Rainner, her eyes running over the digital readouts at the foot of each bed. A Bolian female named Phia and two Human males named Bomba and Embry. Their bio-signs were very low. Comatose and unaware, little more than corpses, none of them were a threat to her purpose. "Medical database is through here."

Rainner and Evaer passed into the sickbay's small administrative area. The morgue lay off to one side, but the myriad flashing lights of a large database computer drew them to it like a pair of fireflies. The ship schematics of the Jenner that had been provided for them had been perfectly accurate thus far.

She tipped Evaer the nod, and the Bolian hurriedly connected his portable storage drive up to the medical database. His fingers danced over the interface controls while she checked the chronometer on her wrist. He gave a light chuckle, and the screen of his device lit up with a sky-blue Starfleet delta. "I'm in, Cassie."

Rainner felt a flash of elation. It was working. As the hospital ship to almost one hundred other starships, the USS Jenner held the medical records of almost everyone in its fleet. The lives of almost one hundred thousand Starfleet personnel - disease histories, genetic data, DNA prints, everything - all in one easily-accessible database, and all linked to important bio-information such as blood types, previous transporter records, immunities, and everything in between. It was worth a fortune to the right buyer, but in all her ten years as captain of the Annabelle's Lament, Cassidy Rainner had only once met the right buyer for this kind of merchandise, and right now he was light years away in his dungeon, awaiting their return.

"Beginning file transfer," whispered Evaer. On the screen of his device, thousands of service records were being downloaded. Faces, ranks, names, positions - all flashed by like arcs of lightning.

Rainner checked her wrist chronometer again. Sixty seconds. The Annabelle's Lament, sitting pretty in one of the Jenner's exhaust manifolds, would need to get moving soon. Plasma from the tailipipes of any starship had a way or irradiating whatever it touched, no matter how much metaphasic shielding tried to block it out. The split second that those shields came down, they would beam back, engage the cloak, and be out of here before anyone realised anything was untoward, only needing a small dose of anti-rad meds.

Unless something went wrong.

A series of warning chimes erupted from Evaer's device. The Bolian cursed and started pulling the connections out of the medical database.

"What's the problem?" hissed Rainner, looking back and forth between Evaer and the sickbay main door.

"They've detected an unauthorised computer access," said Evaer, snapping the isolinear device closed. "I got most of what we were looking for. Just another few seconds while I set the transporter tags."

Rainner nodded, reached into her pocket, and produced the incendiary grenade she had brought to cover their tracks. She primed the weapon while Evaer entered the morgue. When he reappeared, his isolinear device was back in its bag and slung on his shoulder.

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Scene: Captain's Quarters


[[Bridge to Captain T'lok.]]

The insistent chime of the communications alert roused Captain T'lok from her sleep. She was fully awake and alert within seconds, imposing her will upon her body. Daily meditation and practice of the Kolinahr was useful in moments like this. "T'lok here."

[[Captain, I apologise for disturbing you at this hour, but internal sensors indicate an unauthorised computer access in sickbay.]] It was the voice of Lieutenant McConnell, the Jenner's night officer. [[I cannot make contact with Doctor Douglas and have alerted Security.]]

T'lok rolled out of bed, reaching for her uniform. "Understood, Lieutenant. Yellow - "

An explosion several decks below threw Captain T'lok to the floor. She thumped her head against the leg of her own bed as the alarm klaxons blared. She looked up in a half-daze, seeing the Jenner immediately begin to drop out of warp.

[[Captain?]]

T'lok staggered to her feet. "Red Alert!"

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Scene: Corridor near sickbay


As the klaxons roared and the shitstorm blossomed, Cassidy Rainner and Evaer ducked into a nearby side-corridor.

"That grenade probably blew out a bulkhead," said Evaer. "You think those three comatose patients and that night nurse are alright?"

"Not our fucking problem," said Rainner. She touched the communicator stud on her forearm. "Rainner to Lament."

[[Goldstadt here. Ready to come back, captain?]]

Rainner cast a glance at Evaer's shoulder-slung bag. Tens of thousands of medical records, genetic information, transporter records, and other extraneous data. They'd done it. The Big Score. "Affirmative. Drop the metaphasic shields and beam us out."

Two shimmering white pillars of light appeared in that gloomy corridor, making it as bright as day, and a moment later it was empty.

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Location: Space
Scene: The fleet, dropping out of warp


EXT. SHOT OF THE FLEET DROPPING OUT OF WARP.

The dozens of starships in the fleet are dropping out of warp speed to sublight, decelerating so suddenly and quickly that one moment there is nothing, then in a sudden burst of light, they are there. The wounded USS Jenner, venting atmosphere from her sickbay viewing port, activates its shield bubble to seal the breach in her skin.

As the Jenner's impulse engines fire and her plasma exhausts flare into life, the Annabelle's Lament silently detaches from the Jenner, hazing from a solid gull-winged form into artificial nothingness as she activates her cloak. Only a slight distortion in the light around her lets us know where she is, and a second later, like an elastic band being shot from the thumb, she snaps into warp. Silence surges softly in her wake.

Nearby, the gunmetal grey USS PHOENIX hangs in space, its violet nacelles churning with nascent power, station-keeping lights blinking in the darkness, and we slowly shift our POV toward her, toward one viewing port, through which we can see a room where some familiar faces are gathering.

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The Federation Role Playing Game Presents
A Mind's Eye Production of a Collective Film

STAR TREK PHOENIX: PROMETHEAN

Starring
Shawn Collins as Jake Crichton
Christopher Del Gesso as Russ BaShen
Alix Fowler as Kassandra Thytos
Jamie LeBlanc as Aerdan Jos
Susan Ledbetter as Eve Dalziel
Joy Phillips as Samantha Perry
Dale Rasmussen as James Barton
Jerome McKee as Michael Turlogh Kane


FEATURING A CAST OF HUNDREDS
WRITTEN BY THE CREW OF THE PHOENIX

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Location: USS PHOENIX
Scene: Conference Room, after the attack on the Jenner


Michael Turlogh Kane slid into his seat around the table where his senior officers had gathered. Coffee was steaming from a jug in the centre of the table, and not everyone was able to stifle a yawn at being called out of bed. It was early, but everyone had good reason for rousing themselves, and now they were going to hear all about that reason in detail.

Kane looked round. Jake, Kass, Aerdan, Eve, Barton, Byte, and Cade were in attendance, all looking at him expectantly. Deciding not to wait, he let them have it. "About an hour ago, the USS Jenner was infiltrated and attacked by two unknown persons, who beamed into their central sickbay, shot the night duty nurse, stole the medical records of tens of thousands of people in this fleet and badly damaged the Jenner's sickbay to cover their tracks. That's why we have dropped out of warp and are holding station here."

Everyone looked at each other. The news took a few moments to sink in.

Cade Foster spoke first. "They stole medical records?"

Kane nodded. "Yes. Medical records, transporter records, and all associated data."

Cade shrugged. "Why? That makes no sense. So someone now knows who has crotch-rot, or who is genetically pre-disposed towards having a big - well, never mind. My point is, who would be interested in information like that?"

{{The records themselves may be of no interest to anyone in and of themselves, Doctor Foster,}} said Byte, {{but they could be used in identity theft. A Starfleet medical record not only contains an abridged version of the service record, but also includes recent transporter logs, details of next-of-kin, psychology profiles - }}

"I know what a medical record looks like, Lieutenant Byte," said Cade. "My question remains. The Neo-Essentialists already have copies of all our medical records. Outdated copies, I grant you, but updating their bureaucratic records is not going to help them defeat this fleet."

"It might be a question of privacy," ventured Barton uneasily. "Not everyone is fine with the idea of their most intimate records being available for public viewing."

"I'm certainly not," said Jake. "My kids' profiles are on my medical records."

"So why in all hell'd anyone want 'em? asked Kass. "If it was the Neo-Essentialists, ya'd think that they'd've bombed tha crap out've the Jenner. Take out our hospital ship an' stuff so we'd have a harder time dealin' with casualties an' such."

"Was there much damage to the Jenner's sickbay?" asked Aerdan.

Kane nodded slowly. "Their medical database was damaged. Their morgue was obliterated and the main sickbay has been gutted. They used an incendiary grenade."

Cade leaned forward. The older man's face was a mask of worry. "Was anyone hurt?"

Kane knew exactly who he was talking about. "Arthur Embry and the night officer, Stephen Douglas, are dead. Both Phia and Storm Bomba are in surgery as we speak. They were badly injured by the grenade's blast and required emergency triage. " He spoke softly. "Captain T'lok informs me that the Jenner's chief medical officer is not optimistic regarding their chances. I'm sorry, Doctor."

Cade's face twisted for a moment, but then he caught himself. He looked around at the gathering, his emotions bubbling under the surface. "Can I - "

Kane shook his head. "Your judgement would be compromised. They're already in good hands. Try to focus on that."

Cade fell into introverted silence.

"What are we doing about this?" asked Aerdan after a moment.

Kane activated a control on the table. A holographic image appeared, showing a closeup of the rear of a starship's nacelle. "This is a representation of the Jenner's starboard plasma exhaust," he said, indicating the hologram. "Whoever boarded the Jenner approached the fleet in a small starship and hid in the Jenner's plasma exhaust, using metaphasic shielding to negate the radiation from the exhaust manifolds. They managed to accomplish this while the fleet was at warp, leading us to believe they are also equipped with some sort of cloaking device. The Jenner's operations department is still piecing it all together, but it appears our infiltrator ship moved away when the fleet dropped out of warp."

"How do we know this?" asked Eve.

Kane touched another control, and a hazy green line appeared, moving away from the Jenner and heading off in a spinward direction. "Because they left a trail." Another touch of a control zoomed in on the hazy green line. Now it showed the outline of a small ship with a slanted body and two gull-winged nacelles. "This is sensor flash data gleaned at the moment the infiltrator ship moved away. They had to drop their metaphasic shields to beam out their two infiltrators, then they raised their cloak. But in that split-second between the dropping of their shields and the raising of their cloak, we saw what they looked like, and that slight irradiation of their ship is enough of to let us know which way they were headed."

Aerdan Jos leaned forward in his seat, antennae curling and uncurling as his brow furrowed. "Captain, that ship looks like the Annabelle's Lament."

Kane frowned. "Explain, Commander."

Aerdan looked around the table at everyone. "I think I know that ship. I can't be sure it's them - after all, it might be a different ship of the same class. But two years ago, after I and some companions from the Pendragon had been transported across the universe by the chronoton artifact to Nimbus Three, we were rescued by the USS Armstrong."

Kane nodded. "Go on."

"The Armstrong was attacked by a small pirate ship that had hidden itself amongst the asteroids in the Nimbus system," continued Aerdan. "We identified it as the Annabelle's Lament, a mercenary privateer. Her configuration matches the sensor flash data you've showed us. They tried to steal the chronoton artifact from the Armstrong. There was a battle. We won. I thought we had destroyed them..." He trailed off for a moment before catching himself. "I'll gather whatever information we have on the Annabelle's Lament and get back to you, Captain."

"Alright," said Kane. He gestured to the green line that marked the escape path of the Annabelle's Lament. "Their destination seems to be spinward, on course two-seven-two, mark zero-four-one. Mister Byte?"

The android considered a moment. {{The Lavenza system lies almost three days' travel in that direction, Captain. Lavenza is a binary star system that contains two worlds. One is a class J gas giant, and the other is a small class P ice planet.}}

Kane nodded and looked around at them. "We've been ordered to detach from the fleet and go after these people, whoever they are. We're going to bring them to account for the theft of that data, and the damage and deaths they caused aboard the Jenner. We'll be leaving in the next few minutes. To your stations."

As once, the command crew of the Phoenix rose to their work.

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Location: The Annabelle's Lament
Scene: Bridge


Cassidy Rainner sat back and relaxed, taking a quaff from her glass of kanar. The thick Cardassian beverage slid down her throat and warmed her insides. Around the bridge, four of her five other crewmembers were also relaxing while Evaer flew the ship.

The job was over. The data had been stolen and they were on their way back to base under the safety of the cloak. The Annabelle's Lament was a small ship and lightly armed, but she was whip-crack fast and had a lot of fancypants systems to keep her out of trouble, not least a nifty cloaking device that pretty much made her impervious to normal sensors. She was a good ship to captain.

Her crew - now, they was something else. Of the six souls aboard the Lament, she only knew Evaer well. She and the Bolian had been together for almost eight years, and each of them trusted each other in the way that only thieves could. The others were miscreants, scum she had picked up along the trail here and there. As a privateer captain, it was always a good idea to split the booty and rotate a new crew onto the ship every couple of months. That way, people didn't have an excuse to mutiny when they didn't get paid.

Goldstadt came up to her with a hypo in his meaty hand. He was a big, greasy-looking Human male, who was practically covered in sweat and body hair. He hailed from one of the frontier shithole worlds along the old Klingon border, and he'd once done a stint in the Starfleet Marine Corps. They taught him basic first aid, which made Goldstadt the closest thing the Annabelle's Lament had to a doctor aboard. Working on the battlefield had given Goldstadt a proclivity for knives, and the sick sonofabitch had several blades on a bandolier strapped across his shoulders. Rainner never wanted to see what Goldstadt was capable of with his knives.

"What's in the hypo?' she asked.

"Scared of what I'll put into you?" rumbled Goldstadt with a buck-toothed, leering smile. He was standing with his weight on the back of his hips, presenting his groin to her. "It's a light dose of arithrazine for any plasma radiation that might have leaked in while we were beaming you and Blue-Balls out."

"Don't call me that," said Evaer from across the bridge, but he didn't meet Goldstadt's eyes when he said it.

Rainner rolled her eyes. When she was a little girl, her long-dead mother had told her stories of beautiful princesses and the dashing princes who swept them off their feet, and she had loved hearing those stories. But there were no princes anywhere in this grim, dark galaxy. There were only misogynist morons like Goldstadt. She held out her hand. "Make it quick."

Goldstadt depressed the hypo into her wrist with a hiss. She idly scratched the place where the drug had entered her. "Get back to work."

"I will when that roofie I just gave you takes effect," he smirked.

"Get back to fucking work, Goldstadt."

He walked away, pretending to be wounded to the heart, and Rainner turned her attention back to her computer monitor. The display was idly cycling through the tens of thousands of names, broken down by starship.

She paused a moment, recognising the name of the USS Phoenix. That ship was the cause of all that trouble on Earth a year or two ago. She selected it, and opened up the list of her command crew. Kane. Jos. Crichton. Barton. Thytos. Dalziel. BaShen. Perry.

"Who's first?" she wondered aloud. Then, drawn by some unknown impulse, the moved her finger and made her selection.

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Location: USS Phoenix
Scene: Bridge


Michael Turlogh Kane was on the bridge, a communications frequency open with the Century. Dexter Marxx's rust-red features filled the screen.

{{The Jenner's repairs are complete, and the fleet will continue toward sector zero-zero-one,}} the Vegan was saying. {{We'll only be travelling as fast as our slowest ship, so you'll have time to catch up with us for the big finale.}}

"We won't miss it, Admiral," said Kane, looking around the bridge. All the senior officers were at their stations. "The Phoenix has a score to settle with the Neo-Essentialists."

Marxx nodded. {{Safe journey, Phoenix. Century out.}}

The screen winked off, showing the fleet massing ahead for the jump to warp.

Kane turned to Russ. "Set course for the Lavenza system and engage at best speed."

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Location: Space

EXT. SHOT OF THE FLEET

The gun-metal grey Phoenix angles away from the rest of the fleet, her violet nacelles flaring. In a burst of purple-white light, she jumps to warp and is gone.

A moment later, the fleet resumes its course, over one hundred starships snapping into warp in a whirlwind of light.

In the distance, the lights of the Lavenza system twinkle.

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NRPG: And so begins 'Promethean', our new story, wherein the Phoenix attempts to track down the Annabelle's Lament to the isolated Lavenza system and find out why they stole our medical records. Along the way, we'll be tying up some loose ends (including one that's fifteen years old) and working on our character interactions. In my next post, I'll outline the Lavenza system and maybe reveal some more about the Annabelle's Lament.

There are 6 baddies on the Annabelle's Lament. Cassidy Rainner is a Human female, their captain. Evaer, the Bolian male, is the first mate. Goldstadt is a third. But who are the other three? Go ahead, create some interesting villains and give them a backstory and a role on the Annabelle's Lament.

How do your characters feel about the fact that a bunch of privateers are making off with their medical records?

As always, clues and tidbits dropped throughout the post for your speculating pleasure! Will this mystery be solved in the chat room?


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

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