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subplotkudzu
USS Carter After-Action Report: Battle for the Burning Nebula
Act I: As the Carter continues preparations for the Nebula assault they play host to a Medusan scientist who illuminates the crew on the nature of Interphasic space. The captain sets her science and engineering crews to find a way to detect and combat interphasic energies before going back to planning the more conventional assault, and suborning the egos of the various factions to a single plan. She also spends some quality time with Captan Saleah of the Lenov, cementing their relationship.
For the second season in a row Jason couldn't join us on the last game, so Bernie's role is minimized and Darius is off the ship - perfectly reasonable not to send in the Ambassador on the fleet. It's a shame, but what can we do?
The intro with the Medusan scientist went well, if long, because the PCs were genuinely interested in the alien race and its history. I suspect that we could have trained the camera on Kkrek & Dr. Knox for hours and edited the footage down to a lovely documentary if I had given her the chance. In any event Capt. Sakhet did realize the importance of the Meduasn's message and set her scientists and engineers to build the ship a defense. This they did, building a sensor pod that would detect interphasic transfer points and a device that would shield the ship from interphase teleporters.
The discussions with the other captains were glossed over, as was the down time with Capt. Saleah, more's the pity. Asha was 7.5 months pregnant and had her feet up for most of the session, so she lacked the energy for this sort of squabble. I instead let her handle it with some Star Fleet Administration and Diplomacy rolls, both of which are key skills for Sakhet, glossed over the brief romance scene and let the players work out the plan. They sketched out a multi-wave, multi-direction attack with smaller ships luring the Klingon ships away from stations followed by Z-Axis attacks from above and below by the larger vessels, with the destroyers and Betazeds as a final hammer on the divided Klingon forces. I called for Tactics-Space and Tactics-Klingon rolls, with bonuses from the other captains who Sakhet had already corralled. Their roll was very good, indicating that the plan was also very good.
And into the nebula they went. For the sake of continuity I used some of the same descriptions from season 1, session 1 - their first trip into the Nebula. The fleet was led by Deltan navigators, maximizing speed and chance of surprise.
Act II: The assault on the Klingons begins, a hard-fought battle with potential casualties on both sides - including heavy damage to Saleah's ship, the Lenov. As it continues the Carter detects interphasic signals surrounding the Nebula's core. Twenty-four Tholian webships appear, encase the field of battle, declare the whole area to be an annexation zone and shift it into the Interphase. The Federation ships are able to escape, save the Lenov, which is captured along with the Klingons. The Carter devises a plan for going after the Lenov, working overtime to modify their tech to exit from the fields we know.
The fight went according to plan: the Carter and the other science ships drawing out the Klingon scouts. The Klingon ships are older models, making it a fair fight one-on-one, but the Federation ships are outnumbered. The Champollion takes heavy damage and has to withdraw while the Fourier and Linneas provide the better-outfitted Carter with backup. With the stations as vulnerable as they were likely to get, the next wave began - the Aerie, Lenov, Potemkin & Farragut swooped up from below, hammering on the stations’ weakest shields. Of them the Lenov takes the biggest hits but does the most damage, opening a hole in the Klingon defenses that the Aerie ably exploits. Limping from the damage it took, the Lenov changes targets, moving to aid the science vessels since even damaged it outguns the smaller Klingon ships. It is aided by the Betazed ships, whose telepathic crews have a distinct advantage when it comes to predicting their target's actions. The destroyers take the Lenov's place against the stations.
All told things are looking good for Star Fleet when the Carter detects the interphase points. While she knows they're there Sakhet has little time to respond, but she is surprised when the arriving ships are not more Klingons but a new race intent on turning this into a three sided battle. The Tholains announce that this area, along with 5 others in the nebula, are now Tholian Annexation zones, and that they will no longer tolerate incursions from this dimension into the assembly's sovereign territory.
While the Cruisers aren't happy about surrendering their advantage they follow Sakhet's order for all ships to break off and clear the area rather than further taint an unknown first contact. The only exception is the Lenov, which is now dead in space. Sakhet directs the Carter to it, hoping to evacuate its crew in the lull as Klingons move to engage the Tholian ships - and fall to a withering crossfire. Captain Saleah is unwilling to leave his ship, but before the argument can really get going the whole area is…somewhere else. Lt. Commander Pelski and Lt Fujita confirm that they are all now in the Interphase.
In other words, the players completely circumnavigated Plot Turn 2 by staying with the Lenov. And I had been doing so well at predicting them to that point, too!
Act III: The Tholians announce that all of the material in the annexation zone is now property of the Tholian Assembly, including the crew of the Lenov (and now the Carter). The Tholains clearly have them outgunned, so the Carter must diplomatically engage the aliens to either negotiate a return to normal space or buy time to develop a tech solution that will get them and the crew of the Lenov back.
The Carter immediately begins the process of beaming over the Lenov's crew, but Captain Saleah insists that with a little engineering help he can get his boat operational again. Knowing that she would be just as reluctant to leave the Carter where their positions reversed Sakhet sends T'Prin & Fujita, and they get to work, no not just restarting the Lenov's engines but on linking the Lenov to the Carter's anti-interphase device. Pelski & Chief Engineer Fraiser turn to Kkrek for help in modifying the device but the Medusan is gone - his box is empty, and Pelski (correctly) surmises that the five dimensional being was no brought along in the shift. This gives the scientist additional data on how interphase works, and if Fraiser can just get the device to run at 150% Pelski can get both ships home. The Chief Engineer nods his head - working miracles is a Starfleet engineering specialty.
Sakhet & Funk watch cautiously as the Klingons continue a futile attack against the Tholain ships, but the Tholains are undamaged and more numerous. Shortly after the fight begins it is over, the Tholains having woven a web around the Klingons and evicting them to yet another dimension. "We need time, and someone to talk to them," Sakhet muses.
By the time she calls Dr. Knox the belter anthropologist is already in her personalized space suit. "If they don’t know we have transporters we don’t want to advertise it," Sakhet tells her, and then has a brief confused discussion with a Tholian ship before ordering Knox out the airlock. The scientist lept into the crucible of interphasic space, seeing amber bars on her suit's thermal gauges as she glided through the haze, eventually landing inside a webships hanger bay, facing the crystalline, vaguely insectoid alien. "Define duty and caste."
"Scientist," she replies, "But that's a choice, not duty. And I don't have a caste." The Tholains eyes flash green, then it extends a arm to indicate her suit, "You possess a personal ship. Can you not survive without it?" Careful not to nod lest it be misconstrued, Knox responds, "It's a suit. We build environment enclosures to go places we couldn't otherwise." Another green flash, and the first contact continues.
Back on the Lenov the warp drive is fixed and everything is in place to link the "cross interphase shifter" to the damaged ship's spaceframe. Outfitted in a bulker EVA suit T'Prin leaps the chasm between the two ships trailing a modified power cable behind her. The magnetic boots lock on to the Carter's hull and a few seconds of fumbling open a data hatch to connect the umbilicus between the ships. Fujita, grateful it's not him out there in space again, beams over with the last of the non-essential crew - Captain Saleah and his senior staff stayed behind. "Ready when you are Carter" Saleah transmits to Sakhet. "C'mon Demi, bring us home."
Meanwhile Surya continues her explanation of humanity. The Tholians are unimpressed, "unspecialized, no division of labor, physically frail, chaotic, ill organized…" Dr. Knox smiles behind her face plate, "Perhaps, but we are versatile, innovative and determined." Commander Funk whispered through her suits comm link, "Your heat shields are reading red and we're ready to pull you out. Prepare for transport." "Not yet," the anthropologist hissed back, "I'm almost done."
The Tholian unleashed another high pitched whine, which Surya guessed was likely a form communication or racial conferencing based on. There was a pause, then another shriek, then "you are ungovernable, unfit for the Assembly. Go." The doctor leapt back to the Carter, feeling the gentle tug of s tractor beam pull her home. "OK, now we can go."
The word given, Fraiser connected the final relay, firing up the shifter. The power drain was immediate and noticeable, blowing out the tactical console on and sending everyone to the floor as the ship lurched. Fraiser moved his bulk to the shifter, jury rigging it for one last power boost that sent the Carter and all of the Lenov save her port nacelle back into their home universe. Fujita screamed "Chief, no!" but could not stop the shifter's explosion. Fire suppressant sprayed across engineering as Fujita, T'Prin and Selzo scrambled to their chief, the Vulcan hefting debris off of the mangled body. "Med Lab, we need a doctor now!" Fujita yelled as he tried to stop the blood that was pooling on the bulkheads.
Dr. Mark spent 22 hours in surgery with Fraiser, the three junior engineers watching in shifts as she stripped the irradiated skin off his arm and replaced it with clone grafts, installed an artificial heart, regenerated his corneas and finally put in a new right ear. Eventually the doctor walked out, reached her chair and collapsed, but the engineer would live.
Captain Sakhet held two major meetings during that time, first with Dr. Knox: The belter explained her thinking - if the Tholians were convinced that humans were ungovernable it would make keeping the Carter & Lenov, or engaging in conquest, an unpalatable suggestion. Since the annexation zones were all inside the nebula, were not places that Starfleet was not likely to care about, and were created in retaliation for the Klingon's and Bardek's invasion of Tholain space there was no reason to not let the Tholains have them and trust that their next contact would start on better terms. Sakhet nodded, trusting that she could explain it to the admirals in a way that would make it stick. The Tholain presence in the sector wasn't ideal for Federation security, but they would have been here regardless of Sakhet's action, and it's better that they replaced the Klingon threat than supplement it.
The second meeting was with Lt. Fujita. It was clear that Chief Fraiser, even if he did pull through, was not going to be returning to active duty: he had announced his impending retirement months ago. That meant the ship needed a new chief engineer, and that meant Fujita had a new job. Dahiki was not thrilled at the reason for the promotion but accepted it once he learned that this had been Fraiser's intention. He then went back to his shift to organize the clean up.
The third meeting, off duty, was with Benjamin. With the fight in the nebula over the Carter had to get back to its five year mission of seeking out old lives and old civilizations, and she'd be damned if she didn't get to spend some time with her boyfriend before heading back out there.
And that's where we left things. The last session worked pretty well as both a standalone and a season ender, giving the end of the second season a very different feel than the end of the of the first. If you recall, the first season ended with them rescuing settlers, destroying a Klingon base and causing a massive explosion in the nebula. This season the fight was undercut by outside forces and, rather than gaining clues on how to defeat their opponents, they find themselves with an entirely different problem. Where stealth and violence carried the day last time, this time it was talking and technology. It also leaves me in a good place for season 3.
The players were happy with the game: Karen really did have an "oh my god, he's gonna die" moment when Fraiser fixed the machine, so I was able to both foreshadow and still surprise them. Always nice. (Note the damage to the arm image again, setting things up for Bernie's eventual limb loss.) We managed to resolve or advance all the romantic sub-plots, and while I didn't get to do as much in Engineering as I'd hoped, I have ideas for advancing that next season.
