Posted by Gamemaster Demi Tribble (Gamemaster) in Mission Start - Life & Death

Posted by Gamemaster Demi Tribble (Gamemaster) in Mission Start - Life & Death

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vora Zorell (Scientist) in Mission Start - Life & Death
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The Europa was cruising through space. At Black Rock, the Black Fleet’s HQ, the Europa had rotated some crew on and off and taken on new supplies and had one scientific and one general module installed by the grease monkeys on the station overseen by Chief Engineer Ducote. The orders for the Europa were delivered to them by a very officious individual, who identified himself as Fleet Command Aide Commander John Kingston. It seemed that the Commander had reached his ideal position in Star Fleet, the ability to sit behind a desk, dictate orders and deliver those orders to Fleet Captains, oh and no doubt push a fair bit of paper and red tape around while he was doing it.

In this case, the orders for Captain Dvorak and the USS Europa was to travel to the Copenhagen Expanse, a mostly unexplored region of the Alpha Quadrant, which seemed to have interesting spacial anomalies to map and phenomena to explore. They would engage in those activities while not forgetting the prime directive and other directives including responding appropriately to hails, calls for help and of course, avoiding the sentient nuts of Bi-Kini Atollia who were believed to be located somewhere in the expanse. The expanse, of course, was located between Federation space, and the space belonging to several of their neighbours, namely the Cardassians, Tzenkethi, Talarians and Tholians and while the Ferengi were a bit further affield, some of their more … adventurous merchants plied this expanse to get the goods to Oed V, Black Rock and elsewhere in the Black Fleet. But the powers decided that they would keep the expanse open to all and they would engage in scientific exploration in the area. There were, it was rumoured, outposts and stations and bases of the various powers to study the unusual properties of the expanse.

And so, this is where the crew of the Europa found themselves, cruising along in the expanse moving from potential anomaly to potential anomaly, mapping, measuring, scanning and hoping that something would come their way to give them a bit of excitement. Of course, there were some, scientists in the main who were excited to be mapping, measuring and scanning the unique features of the Copenhagen Expanse.

The issue for the Europa crew was that the Europa was relatively small, and the Copenhagen Expanse, even though it was only a small part of the Alpha quadrant, quite big by camparison. The doors to the bridge opened, and a cat, slender and black from her ears to the tip of her tail walked across the bridge, before sniffing at the captain’s chair, and curling up right in front of it, purring and cleaning herself.

Captain Dvorak had been focused on the status display that was built into his chair’s right armrest, and it took a couple of moments before he had noticed the black cat. This was a rather confusing thing to see on the bridge. He was not aware that anyone on the ship had a cat, let alone a black one…

The bridge’s normal sounds were interrupted by a priority one distress call from somewhere ahead of them within the expanse. That’s the kind of call that means drop everything and come as fast as possible, there may be something more interesting to do than to measure, map and scan stellar phenomena.

GM

The mystery of the cat would have to wait; the trilling noises on the Bridge console indicating the distress call would take priority. Nameless Ensigns reported its existence and relative position within a few seconds.

“Let’s find out what that distress call is about. Adjust course to intercept it please, and increase speed to warp factor 8,” the Captain ordered. He turned to look towards the science station. “Is there anything on sensors that could tell us what the source of that distress call is or what the problem might be?”

– Johann Dvorak, CO

Abrams stepped onto the bridge to hear most of what Dvorak had just said, and her curiosity was piqued. She wanted ask about the distress call but of course it was clear this was a new thing they were investigating. As she moved over to her station, she looked over and did a double take at the cat in the captain’s chair. “Bring-your-new-pet-to -work-day, Sir?” she asked, as much a query and as an offer to help as she looked over the sensors to see what was what.

Abrams, COS

“No,” the Captain said to Abrams. “No it is not. I don’t even like cats. I’m more of a dog person.” It had been many decades since Johann last had a dog. He personally didn’t think that owning a pet that complicated was really compatible with his career. Then again, he also thought that about lots of things that started sliding into his life since he became the Captain of this ship…

At a secondary science station, Vora Zorell’s brow was furrowed as she access the sensor array and tried to determine what was going down and for whom. “Working on it,” she called out. Normally she’d be in Astrometrics, but she was covering the bridge for Ensign Delby for a couple hours.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

“We’ll sort that out later, if it’s not bothering anybody,” he said in passing to Abrams as he waited for Vora or anyone else on the Bridge to report any actionable information.

– Johann Dvorak, CO

Vora’s analysis of the distress call would reveal it was Federation in origin and had vision and audio as part of the package.

The cat moved on from lying in front of the CO’s chair and padded towards the CoS’ station.

-GM

“Captain, the distress has both an audio and visual component and seems to be Federation in origin,” Zorell relayed.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

The movement towards her caught her attention and Cass crouched and held out a hand to see if the creature was friendly. Clearly it wasn’t opposed to people given it was hanging out on the bridge, but how the feline got up here in the first place was a mystery. “And where did you com from, hmm?” she asked the cat. She’d do a quick search in a moment to see which crewmembers had cats registered as pets (necessary in case of emergency).

Abrams, COS

The cat sniffed curiously at Abram’s hand and licked it and then began to purr

“Go ahead and put the distress call on screen,” the Captain ordered. “Let’s see what it’s about.”

Who is even out here to send a distress call? he wondered.

– Johann Dvorak, CO

“Aye, Sir,” Vora said, and had the call sent to the viewscreen. She briefly eyed the cat and also thought it weird it was up here but was more focused on the apparent emergency they had stumbled upon.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

The contented cat became less contented as the viewscreen was replaced and the noises and images began … it edged slowly away from Abrams and went into a corner …

The viewscreen changed from the starfield to static and then slowly an image of man in command red (or is it red from blood), his pips covered in blood, blood from a cut on his face, his hair disshevelled, his beard not nice and neat, obviously he hasn’t had it barbered in a while, his eyes look terrified and his tone is mixed with fear, anxiety and he is very frantic. As he talks, noise of screams, of things being broken, things being bitten, are in the background and he begins. The signal is from ‘Iota-Gamma Outpost’‘ according to the log details.

“Oh god please help us please. It’s killing us all! Already it took out Alexie and Hardgrove, and … wait … [the commander ducks suddenly and the head of a vulcan … or perhaps a romulan … splatters into the viewer … the head is removed and the monitor is cleaned by the man and he continues] … Wait? What’s that … [heavy thumps are now heard] the recording device goes on an angle] Who’s there? NO!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HEL…” His voice is sudeenly cut off. This is then followed by the wet sounds of meat being cleaved in half, of gore splattering against the walls, and of bloodcurdling screams. Whatever is going on is definitley seriously … however the recording device focuses on the Federation logo, so it is mostly sounds … but then that too is cut off …

The cat began hissing when the distress call is on the screen, it arches its back and its tail starts weaving slowly back and forth. The door to the bridge opens as a crewmember walks in and the cat rushes out into the corridor beyond.

-GM Demi Tribble

OOC: Oops, I forgot
IC: In response to the query from the CoS into who brought a cat on board with those characteristics, the computer replied with a list of names. The last name on the list was Barbara Wheeler. it turned out that Barbara Wheeler, an Engineering Ensign was one of the new crewmembers who boarded from Black Rock, had a black cat named Dart. It turned out that Barbara was the last person to board the ship and join the crew of any species or gender.

-GM Demi Tribble, The Forgetful

OOC: Jumping In!

IC: Ensign P’Mala Dawes walked off the lift and opened the door into the Bridge and a little black cat bolted into the corridor.

She quietly handed the prescription to one of the NE security members manning the stations. “I wanted to deliver this straight to you,” she said discreetly. “You should begin immediately.”

The NE didn’t say anything. He looked shook, ashen. Terrified, even.

“What’s going on?” she asked, a little louder. What had she walked into? And whose cat was that?

-Ensign P’Mala Dawes, Medical