Game session: 4/2/18; we tried out the Supporting Cast rules and the Extended Task rules. Joe made Kray and Tony made Quin.

Hel-Torin leans in and tells Ensign Okumbo, “Ready the Cambridge.” Okumbo smiles widely and practically bolts to the turbolift. Aaron turns to Hel-Torin, who states, “The Cambridge and the Somerville are two prototype runabout shuttles which our flight control department has been eager to play with. Our other shuttles are also named after Bostonian suburbs; we have the Chelsea, the Brookline, and the Malden IV, for example.” Aaron mentally files his questions about whatever happened to the Maldens I through III while Kimball selects seven other crewmembers for the security detail. In total, thirteen Starfleet officers and crew are heading over to the hybrid ship, but the new runabouts can handle that many people.

Commander Shil’vala, Commander T’kora, and Commander Kinnison gather in the main shuttlebay with the engineering and security teams, including Ensign Damian Quin, a Joined Trill engineer,¹⁾ and Ensign Kray, a Tellarite security officer. Kray has been on the Boston for four years, but Quin only transferred here late last year, just before the Borg invasion. They all board the Cambridge, and Ensign Okumbo calls for a copilot. Shil’vala and T’kora both pass so Kimball heads up and settles in. Ensign Okumbo glides the shuttle out and flies over to the stricken Pakled hybrid; she’s smiling widely, and Kimball concedes she is an excellent pilot.

The Cambridge reaches the hybrid and Ensign Okumbo does several passes. T’kora comes into the cockpit, assuming Okumbo is simply showing off, but Kimball shakes his head and points to the hybrid. T’kora sighs when she realizes the truth: the Pakleds covered the main docking ports with the Klingon wings, and the ensign is trying to find somewhere to land. She returns to her seat and gives a subtle shake of her head to Shil’vala, who looks confused. Ensign Okumbo does another pass before grumbling, “I guess that’s our best shot,” and she heads for a rupture in the hull. She carefully maneuvers the Cambridge into a depressurized cargo bay, but realizes there is no airlock here either, so she pivots the runabout and gooses her to bump up against the cargo bay doors.

Shil’vala instructs the away team to don their helmets while Kimball hails the Pakleds and informs them that they will be opening the cargo bay doors in a moment. A Pakled replies, “That is smart,” and Kimball cuts the channel. Once the away team is in their hazmat suits, Okumbo seals the cockpit behind a force field to preserve her atmosphere and then triggers a second force field at the rear door. She then opens the rear hatch, and the away team descends with their equipment. Kimball takes up a stance in front of the door while T’kora lumbers over to the panel and manages to trigger the open command. The cargo bay doors grind open in a spray of rust, and atmosphere immediately vents!

A hapless Pakled who was standing by the cargo bay door suddenly hits Kimball but luckily, his magnetized boots mean he’s not going anywhere. He grabs the scrabbling Pakled while Quin hurriedly sets up a portable force filed generator. The generator kicks on and provides a bubble of atmosphere. The Pakled falls to the ground as Kimball lets go to try to get out of the way. The Starfleet officers slip through the cargo bay doors but Kray steps on the Pakled deliberately. Kimball drags the Pakled into the corridor. He scans the Pakled and finds evidence of depressurization trauma – and extensive radiation poisoning.

The Pakled gets to his feet and laments, “I am Gort. That was not smart.” Kimball replies, “No, it wasn’t. Why were you standing right by a depressurized cargo bay?” Gort replies, “I was told to bring you to the captain.” He then sets off, and the Starfleet officers reluctantly follow. As they walk, they see clear evidence of the original Orion architecture – wide corridors, high ceilings, and pearlescent, smooth bulkheads – and the desecration inflicted by the Pakleds – filth and grime, Klingon components taped wherever they would fit, and torn tapestries.

Kray idly taps a Klingon panel, but rears back when it sparks and bursts into flame! No fire-suppression systems kick in, so Quin elbows Kray out of the way and douses the fire with retardant chemicals from his suit! Quin says, “You shouldn’t do that,” and Kray frantically nods. The Starfleet officers continue following Gort, who is rambling nonsensically. They don’t see any other Pakleds in their journey, only more and more basic engineering disasters waiting to happen. Gort leads them up a set of wide stairs to a large landing that at one point may have been an Orion pleasure-pit. Now, however, it is a junk shop and Captain Slorrod is waiting for them.

Captain Slorrod wears a patched hazmat suit with no helmet but has a shiny rock on a chain around his neck. He rumbles, “A-ron?” but Kimball shakes his head and replies, “Captain Englyss is not here.” Slorrod stares at him blankly for a moment before turning and heading deeper into the hybrid ship. The Starfleet officers follow, as does Gort. Slorrod leads them down to the engineering room, and the engineers stop and stare in horror. The Orion warp core is offline, but there is a Klingon warp core duct-taped perpendicular to the Orion core and braced with plasma injectors. The second core is haphazardly hooked up to the EPS grid and is struggling to provide power.

The rest of engineering is an unholy mess, and the radiation is off the charts. Shil’vala initiates a private channel with Kimball and T’kora to coordinate their efforts; she admits she has no engineering skills to speak of. Kimball wants to track down and “protect” the rest of the Pakled crew but frets the radiation will hamper communication. T’kora agrees, so Shil’vala volunteers to act as a relay between the two other officers. Kimball immediately assigns one of his security officers to protect the XO.

Kimball decides to leave three of his security team here in main engineering while he takes the remaining three to find the Pakleds. T’kora and Shil’vala agree, and T’kora starts issuing orders to her engineers; Quin ends up mapping the warp core and EPS grid. Captain Slorrod remains in engineering while Kimball, Kray, and the other two security officers follow Gort out to the rest of the Pakeld crew. As Gort leads them, they all spot the necrotizing tissue on the back of his head. Kimball decides to try and find anti-rad inoculations to inject the Pakled crew. They reach the Orion sickbay, which has been converted into a crew mess. The room is a mess in a literal sense, and the Starfleet crew sees Pakleds sleeping on biobeds or playing fizzbin; no one seems to care about the newcomers.

One of the biobeds is still working but beeping frantically. Gort reveals that one is Captain Slorrod’s personal bed because he likes the beeping noises. Kimball heads over to the biobed and finds it shrieking radiation warnings – and apparently swearing in Orion. He can commiserate, so he and his team set up another portable generator to diminish the radiation, and then he finds anti-rad inoculations in the functioning biobed. Realizing the sickbay computer is an independent machine unconnected to the rest of the Pakled “upgrades” – and pretty sure the computer just did the binary equivalent of, “Oh thank God, it’s Starfleet” – Kimball starts passing out the injectable medicines and instructs his crew to start injecting the Pakleds. He allows, “They probably won’t feel a thing,” and Kray grumbles, “Challenge accepted.”

Back in engineering, it takes Quin about thirty minutes to map the EPS grid; he finds there is a simple sort of logic behind it and T’kora notes his efforts as “satisfactory.” They plan their next steps: vent the radiation, realign the junction, and restart the Orion warp core. The engineers start work, and Quin initiates the radiation purge. He immediately hits a snag, as the Pakleds have rerouted the exhaust. The Pakled ship immediately starts venting solid waste along with the radiation, as the waste extraction system purges everything simultaneously.

On the Boston, the crew stares in horror at the expanding cloud of waste and Aaron snaps, “Shields!” Hel-Torin starts to say, “The navigational deflectors will-’ but Aaron yells, “Shields up now!” No one argues as Alandra raises the shields. Hel-Torin sighs and Aaron mutters, “I’m going to recommend commendations for the away team for hazardous duty.” Hel-Torin retorts, “No pun intended, I assume. I’m going to recommend quarantine.” Aaron snorts but agrees. Meanwhile, once the radiation is purged, the engineers access the misaligned junction and discover the controls are rusted to uselessness. Quin and T’kora wedge themselves into the conduits and physically force the conduits back into place. They scramble out as the core restart begins, and the engineers are forced to do a lot of rerouting of power as various junctions shut down or go dormant.

Back in sickbay, the Starfleet crew inoculates the Pakleds, and Kray jabs Gort in the neck. Gort snivels and wails, “What was that for?” Irritated beyond measure, Kray reaches up and jabs Gort in the necrotizing tissue and snarls, “It hurts so that these will stop hurting!” Gort starts shrieking in pain and crying, and all the other Pakleds turn to look. The Starfleet team freezes, but one of the Pakleds guffaws and yells, “Gort screams like a Ferengi!” The Pakled crew laughs, while Gort continues to wail. Kimball jokes, “You should give him a hug.” Kray responds, “Is that an order, sir?” Kimball thinks better of it and says, “No.”

Once the Orion warp core stabilizes, T’kora decrees that their mission is a success, and the rest of the engineering hazards are the Pakleds’ problem. It’s been over two hours when the engineers start cleanup and T’kora informs Shil’vala and Kimball. The away team finishes cleanup, which takes another thirty minutes before everyone – including Captain Slorrod – regroups at the cargo bay. Slorrod is holding an Orion treasure box, which he hands to Kimball and says, “For A-ron.” Wary of a booby-trap, Kimball opens the box to find a fist-sized fire ruby, and he immediately realizes that the gem is incalculably valuable – and is likely stolen! Kimball accepts the gift but realizes Slorrod hasn’t received an inoculation. T’kora whips out an Orion hypospray and jabs the Pakled captain violently in the neck.

Kimball compliments her form before trying to explain to Slorrod the medical needs of his crew, but the Pakled captain just nods vacantly. Realizing they are not going to get anywhere the Starfleet crew shoos him away and reenters the cargo bay. They disconnect the portable force field generator and tromp back into the Cambridge. Kimball de-helms and heads into the cockpit; Ensign Okumbo looks up and asks, “Do I want to know?” Kimball shakes his head while Quin growls, “Just get us out of here.” Okumbo shrugs and powers up the Cambridge. She maneuvers out of the cargo bay and into open space. She dodges irradiated waste and lands safely in shuttlebay two. As soon as the Cambridge touches down, Aaron orders the Boston to go to maximum warp; Eleven immediately complies.

The away team disembarks from the Cambridge and Shil’vala hails Aaron and fills him in. Aaron decides he’ll head down to the shuttlebay to see this fire ruby himself, so Kelly takes the center seat and Hel-Torin accompanies Aaron to examine the away team. They reach the shuttlebay a few minutes later, and Kimball hands him the box. Aaron opens it to examine the fire ruby, but frowns when he realizes something the away team couldn’t while wearing their hazmat suits: the weight of the box seems off. The box is definitely heavier on the right, so he picks up the fire ruby, and reveals a false bottom! Everyone pulls out tricorders and starts scanning. They find no traps, but instead a Cardassian data rod and some sort of Cardassian grenade.

Aaron hails Kelly on the bridge and instructs him to meet T’kora in main engineering to examine this technology. Shil’vala is still scanning the box, and she announces, “The rod is online. There’s an active uplink receiving data as we speak, although it’s not transmitting, just receiving.” Hel-Torin prepares a broad-spectrum inoculant and injects T’kora; she nods at the efficiency and departs with the Cardassian tech to meet Kelly in main engineering. Hel-Torin moves off to corral the rest of the away team while Shil’vala and Kimball fill Aaron in – and Kimball rants about the Pakleds.

T’kora meets Kelly in main engineering, at the master systems table. They start with the grenade, and swiftly realize it is a weaponized EMP blast. This grenade will scramble every system on a starship – and potentially kill Ten and Eleven if they’re within twenty meters. They halt their work to put the grenade behind a level ten force field. They then examine the data rod and find it’s transmitting from a Galor-class warship that’s part of a pair and powered down to avoid detection. Both ships are lurking near a de-powered Federation spy probe, while the Prakesh is scanning LV-397 for Bajoran life signs – and specifically hunting one Darrah Mace.

T’kora hails Aaron and tells him, “You need to see this, captain.” In the shuttlebay, Shil’vala offers, “I’ll take the conn, just fill me in later?” Aaron nods gratefully, and they separate. Kimball follows Aaron to engineering while Shil’vala heads to the bridge. Once they reach engineering, T’kora and Kelly show Aaron and Kimball everything. Aaron frowns but has no idea who Darrah Mace is. He checks the main computer and learns Darrah Mace was a lawman in the city of Korto back in 2318, when the Bajorans made formal first contact with the Cardassian Union. Darrah continued serving through the growing Cardassian chokehold until he fled in 2328 when the Cardassians formally occupied and annexed Bajor. His last known location was the Bajoran refugee colony on Valo II, but he does have an SI tag on his file.

Aaron shows the others Darrah Mace’s file and Kimball jokes, “LV-397 has certainly gotten a lot of tourists since I was there.” To everyone’s surprise, T’kora deadpans, “Then perhaps you should not have built a theme park.” Aaron smirks and then hails the bridge. He asks Shil’vala their estimated time of arrival to the probe; Shil’vala replies, “At current speed, four hours. If we drop back to warp eight, approximately eight hours.” Aaron orders a reduction in speed, and for her to get a secure channel to Lieutenant Commander Bjornson on Starbase 211 routed to the strategy room.

The Boston slows down and the officers in main engineering see the immediate difference. They discuss theories about how the Pakleds got this information, and Kelly opines, “This stinks. This is a set up.” T’kora asks, “In what way?” Kelly insists this is a Cardassian trap, set by the Obsidian Order. T’kora admits that may be possible but argues that it is more logical that the Pakleds are an SI asset. Aaron counsels, “Let’s not lean too far into this yet,” and then Shil’vala hails Aaron and reports, “I have Commander Bjornson on the line.” Aaron changes his mind and says, “Just route it down here,” and a second later, the Federation symbol appears as the channel encrypts and then they see Bjornson.

Bjornson greets Aaron and Aaron gives him an update on their Pakled situation and the Cardassian data rod. Bjornson nods and replies glibly, “Ah, the Moban.” Aaron growls, “Wait, you know that ship? Also, T’kora, put a warning out so no one else gets within a parsec of that damned thing.” Bjornson snorts and inadvertently repeats T’kora when he says, “This is what happens when your tactical officer builds a theme park somewhere.” Kimball mumbles, “It was a solar distillery, actually.”

Bjornson looks away and then turns back to Aaron before asking, “Captain, would it be possible for you to do me a favor? I need to kick this up the ladder, so can you develop engine trouble for a few hours?” Aaron clarifies Bjornson needs at least two hours, and then T’kora reaches out and taps a control. Immediately a klaxon starts howling as the Boston drops out of warp! Aaron cries out, “I wanted a gradual deceleration!” but T’kora replies, “Our extended use of maximum warp appears to have caused a micro-fracture in the diliuthium matrix. It will take a few hours to repair.”