Saturday, March 31, 2018

FAR TREK Play Report: Star date 2018.16.02

This is the Final Season 1 episode in my monthly Far Trek game. I want to start out by saying that I had long hoped & planned to run some Far Trek at my local Comic/Game shop. I figured it would last maybe 2 sessions. I took my time and scouted out particular players that I knew liked Star Trek the Original Series and would be in to emulating that style in an RPG. That effort is what really helped this blossom into the 6 awesome sessions we had.

THANK YOU! players and Crew of the USS ARGO!! This never would have happened without you!!!

And now the Season 1 Finale!!!


[ Intro music plays as we zoom in on the Argo towing a merchant craft through space towards a Space Station. On the bridge we see Cade Grim making an entry into his logs.]

Capt. Grim:
CAPTAINS LOG: Stardate 2018.16.02
The Argo is hauling a disabled Merchant Freighter to Space Station K-5 after it ran afoul of a meteor storm. This civilian run station is situated just between the border of Orion Space and the Klingon Empire. The K-5 is known for vast amounts of illegal activity and as a haven for all manner of criminals. Commodore Stone has requested that we start making a regular appearance in this sector. I am to meet with Station Master Delgado to discuss getting K-5 chartered under UFP guidelines.
[ turning to his First Officer] Triarius, how is the Merchant ship holding up?
Merchant Freighter OU-812

Triarius:
The meteor storm caused severe hull damage, and the impulse engines are non-functional. I will turn over tractor beam control to the K-5 station once Chief Zav and his team have made sure all the freighter's systems are in safety-mode. Her crew are anxious to arrive at the station.

Capt. Grim:
Very good, see that the crew are beamed over as soon as we are in transporter range. No need to keep their loved ones waiting any longer than we have too. Mr. Dossa, clear the crew for shore leave while we are here, starting with yourselves. I want my main Officers to get acquainted with our new Home-away-from home.

Lt. Cmdr. F'Riid:
[whiskers twitching] Right away Captain. I think I will thoroughly enjoy myself here.

Lt. JG "max" Holt:
Um Captain, it looks like we might have some interesting company at the station.
[ An ominous image appears on the main view screen.]
Dramatic music!!

COMMERCIAL BREAK

[Scene 1A: Station K-5 public transporter room lobby. We see Captain Cade, Chief Maple, Navigator Holt, Comms Officer F'Riid, and First Officer Triarius.]

Capt. Cade:
Remember people, this is a neutral station and we have no authority here. I'm going to meet the Station Master and I will catch up with you all on the Recreation level later.

[ At this point the crew split up to check out the station. Maxine went straight to the Cantina, while F"Riid and Triarius roamed about the open market areas. Chief Maple pretended to head towards the Rec-level but quickly doubled back to follow the Captain.
We played out a brief scene with Maple shadowing the Captain, when suddenly it was as if the Captain noticed he was being followed and then quickly lost the Security Chief, much to Maple's displeasure.]

Scene 1A - Cantina:
[ Lt. JG Holt enters the cantina and quickly heads to the bar where she begins to quiz the bartender on his knowledge of alien drinks. She sees but ignores a group of Klingons at a nearby table. She however is unaware of another patron who notices her.]

Lt. JG Holt:
[To bartender] "So, have you heard of a Louisiana Coconut?"


[ Meanwhile, Triarius and F'Riid roam the market level of the station and the Comms Officer gets a feel for how the populace of the area is with the Federation being around. He quickly determines that most are hopeful that Station will align itself with the Federation and look forward to the order that will bring. What Triarius does not see is when F'Riid goes to a stall and provides multiple copies of the ARGO-Audio dramas to a vendor!]

Scene 1B - ARGO Sick-bay:
[Dr. Salec looks over results from the Captain's medical & psychological records.] 
Dr. Salec:
Most interesting, the Captain is suffering from a strange form of physio-psychological disorder that would normally have gone undetected if not for his obstinance and repeated avoidance of standard medical protocol. I need to inform Triarius.

Intercomm:
Dr. Salec, the Station master requests to speak with Captain Cade. He wants to know why he is late for their meeting?

Dr. Salec:
Put me through to Triarius.

Scene 1C - Station K-5 service corridor:
[ We see Chief maple and the patron from the Cantina meeting in secret.]

Chief Maple:
Neutron stars are no place for fun.
Klingon Trader: 
Neither are Black holes. You are the Admiral's man then?
Chief Maple:
You'd be dead if I weren't. He's on the station already and I lost him. What do you have for me?
Klingon Trader: 
House B'ol'Oth has been receiving transmissions here at the station from the Argo, it is as he suspected. If you lost him they may already be moving to put their plans in motion. The orders are still to eliminate him correct?
Chief Maple:
They are, but you leave that to ..(communicator beeps). Maple here.

Triarius:
Chief meet us on the market deck, it appears the Captain has gone missing!
                                                                   "Dramatic music!"

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Scene 2 Station K-5 / USS Argo
[ The crew meet up on the Market Deck and Triarius takes the lead. He asks everyone where was the last place they saw the Captain and everyone confirms it was when he left them near the station transporter. By communicator Dr. Salec informs the party that it is urgent they locate the Captain quickly as he may be suffering from a psychological issue that has only just become evident.]

Triarius:
[To the Argo] Can you locate the Captain's communicator? We can't scan the station without setting off an incident with all the non-aligned races here. Chief what do you...[ Chief Maple moves away from the group]

Chief Maple:
[to himself] This is bad. [to the party] I'll check the engineering level, he could cause the most damage there.

Triarius:
Chief! Maple come back here... {Maple disappears into the crowd].

Lt. JG Holt:
What did he mean about causing damage? Is he talking about the Captain!?!?

F'Riid:
Oh no. [ to himself ]

Dr. Salec:
Triarius, we have a faint communicator beacon coming from the cargo deck level.

Triarius:
Thank you Doctor, you have the Conn. If you do not hear from us in 10 minutes alert the Station Master and contact Starfleet command. [turning to Holt and F'Riid] Let's go you two.

[ Searching for the Captain on the Primary Power Level Chief Maple comes up empty-handed but finds the operative he contacted earlier slain by a bladed weapon. 
Back aboard the ARGO, Salec has started to monitor comms and transporter traffic amongst the ships surrounding the space station loking for anything unusual.
At the same time Triarius, F'Riid, and Maxine end up tracking the communicator signal to a seemingly unused storage bay. After entering the door cycles and locks behind them as a group of Klingons led by a Female warrior enter from another door on an upper catwalk.]

Scene 2A - Cargo bay:
Female Klingon:
Looking for someone?

Triarius:
Our Captain, what have you done with him?

Female Klingon:
Oh all sorts of things, with the best yet to come.

Lt. JG Holt:
If you've hurt him I swear I'll...

Female Klingon:
You'll what? [pointing her disruptor at the navigator] Do nothing but die is what you'll do!

F'Riid:
[opens his communicator and sets it to transmit without being seen] I know about the transmissions that have been sent here, and I know that the last one was corrupted and I can fix that.

Triarius & Holt:
What the , what?!?!? F'Riid!!

Female Klingon:
Then you will come with us Caitian! We will find out what you really know.
[F'Riid joins the Klingons on the catwalk and is escorted out the door, just as the Female Klingon orders her two compatriots to dispose of Triarius & Holt.]

Lt. JG Holt: 
We don't have any weapons! [ to Triarius]

Triarius: 
Look about you Lieutenant. [the Andorian spies a loose pipe on the floor near a cargo crate]

Klingon Warrior:
Prepare to die Federation dogs, long live B'ol'Oth!

[ Hearing this over the comms, Chief Maple heads to the cargo deck while trying to get the Argo to use the transporter on the party. The Cargo bay however is shielded against theft and the transporters won't work.]

Argo Science Ensign:
Commander Salec, the airlocks in the Cargo bay where our people are have been set to cycle. If they don't get out of there soon they will decompress!

Dr. Salec:
Chief did you get that?

Chief Maple:
I'm almost to them!

[ An epic hand to hand fight broke out in the cargo bay! Holt dodged a thrown klingon knife picked it up and threw it right back at her assailant stabbing him in the chest! This however just made the klingon angry and he pummeled the navigator with his disruptor. Triarius scooped up the pipe and used it to great advantage in the scuffle! In the end our crew used a dropped disruptor against the klingon warriors and both were disintergrated!!! Chief Maple arrived in time to stop the decompression of the Cargo bay, and the they gave chase to the Female klingon who had taken F'Riid hostage!

A short chase back up a few decks the Female Klingon attempts to kill F'Riid but a poor shot left our Comms. Officer with only a serious wound. Chief Maple fired upon the Klingon but she was transported out at the last second before his phaser shot could hit its mark! ]

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Scene 3 the Argo Conference room:


Triarius:
Alright, no more surprises from any of you. I want to know what is going on, starting with you Chief!

Chief Maple:
I'm sorry but I can't divulge anything without clearance from my Commander at Section 31.

The rest of the crew:
Section 31!!

F'Riid:
Well, that makes sense why the Captain asked me to monitor any strange outgoing/incoming transmissions especially any for or from you Maple.

Triarius:
Go on  Lt.Commander.

F'Riid:
I was tasked by the Captain with this task a few months ago, and at first I found only one strange transmission that had been sent just before I or the Chief were assigned. It wasn't until this morning that my full communications analysis completed and I was going to show the Captain after his meeting on K-5.
[inserts data disc into the Tri-viewer] There have been a half-dozen coded tight beam data-dumps sent from the Argo to these co-ordinates in the past six months.

Lt JG Holt:
Those are the co-ordinates of the K-5 station.

F'Riid:
Yes they are. We only received this short coded message by way of a double-blind comsat just before getting orders to come to the K-5 station. A message for Chief Maple, that I decoded with minimal difficulty. It is instructions for him to meet with an "operative" on K-5. But here is the odd part, after I determined when the original six transmissions were sent they all matched up with times the Captain himself was off-duty and made surprise inspections of the Communications Dept. Also though each transmission is data on the Quadrant we patrol as well as starship routes and secure comm channels, the information itself becomes erratic and filled with more and more inane log entry's and bits of our own reports from our missions. [pointing to the viewer] You can see the fourth and fifth transmissions were nearly 60% junk and the sisxth and last transmission was almost 85% useless info.

Triarius:
Hmm, I can admit that I have come upon the captain doing odd things during his Off-duty shifts but I put it down to "Human" behavior. I thought it to be an eccentricity of his.

Dr. Salec:
Allow me to shed some light on something. As you are all well aware the Captain and I have been at odds with his medical updates since his arrival aboard the Argo. However once I was able to finally get him to comply my results of his physical & psychological data did not match up. After confirming my staff and instruments were not to blame I was able to determine that though all biological data shows the Captain to be 100% healthy he exhibits the psychological signs of someone battling a drug/alcohol addiction. Yet he does not have one for none of those substances are evident in his tests.

Lt JG Holt:
That's why he never finished any of his drinks. He was always getting rounds but I noticed he never actually finished a single drink.

Dr. Salec:
Once you were all engrossed with the Klingons on K-5, I had the sensors calibrated to look for traces of neo-titanium.

Triarius:
Why?

Dr. Salec:
The Captain has a pair of prosthetic legs from mid-thigh down. Apparently he suffered quite an injury on his last mission as a MACO. I was unfortunately unable to discover more as the records are sealed. But, we did get a trace of the metal in the transporter emitters from the K-5 station to the Klingon vessel that departed just moments ago.

Lt. JG Holt:
They've taken the Captain! we have to save him!!

Triarius:
We can't do anything until we get orders from Starfleet HQ. Commander Salec and I have already requested such as well as any information that may help us figure out what is going on. We should be hearing from them shortly.

Lt. JG Holt:
But in the meantime they are getting away with him, and doing who knows what!

F'R'iid:
[console beeps] Incoming message from Starfleet!

[Tri-vid viewer screen - face of Admiral Grim appears]

Admiral Grim:
Admiral Grim

Commander Triarius you and the crew of the Argo are ordered to stand down and return to Starbase 13 for debriefing and re-assignment.

Triarius:
With all due respect sir, our Captain; your son has been kidnapped by renegade Klingons and ..

Admiral Grim:
My son and your Captain is lost to me, and at this time considered a traitor to the Federation. You will folow your orders as given. Chief maple you are relieved and will be re-assigned upon returning to base. I expect you all to follow my orders. Admiral Grim out! [viewer goes dark]

Lt. JG Holt:
This is a load of space-shi....

Triarius:
Maxine! sit down. The Doctor and I have one more avenue to explore. Salec, if you would.

[The Vulcan touches the comms panel]

Dr. Salec:
Bridge, are we ready?

Bridge Comms Ensign:
Putting Ambassador Spock through now Sir.

Ambassador Spock:
I am here with Commodore Stone and we have a lot to tell you.

[ The crew is told that Captain Cade was captured by a group of renegade Klingons after the attempted assassination of Ambassador James Kirk and a High ranking Klingon Official. Cade was presumed dead, but a rescue mission was attempted against regulations and led by MACO Master Sgt. Tar'get. Cade was recovered from a klingon outpost of House B'ol'Oth. They had subjected Cade to weeks of torture and physical abuse in an Arena where he battled other humanoids and creatures for sport. Ambassador Kirk has given us first hand information on how it was discovered the renegade klingons used a Mind-Sifter on Cade as well. It was determined that section 31 led by Admiral Grim would use Cade to see how far the Klingon brain-washing had gone.]

 GM:
Once everything was laid out, the crew as whole agreed to disregard the Admiral's orders and go after thier Captain! Even Chief Maple who had grown fond Cade wanted to join in the rescue!!

[ The crew quickly gathered what info they had and sussed out where the rengade Klingon faction was holed up! F'Riid was able to contact the Orion "trader" ship the Violater with whom the Argo had a previous encounter and enlisted their aid in tracking down the Klingons of House B'ol'Oth.

The USS Argo and the Violator headed out to a small system situated just this side of the Klingon border. They located the base and set a plan in motion to get Captain Cade back!]

GM:
Our finale session was running late and the store was closing so we had to put things in high gear.  

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Scene 4 the Rescue!

Argo faces off with House B'ol'Oth

The crew came up with a plan to warp into short range of the Klingon base taking them by surprise and laying down as much fire on the three proto-type D-7 battle cruisers the Klingons had in orbit. Since the Argo had beaten one of these ship before they had a good idea how to handle them. Along with the Orions they were able to put a real hurting on the D-7's in the first couple of rounds!! Triarius took to space combat like a fish to water and on his first roll of the dice to attack the unwary d-7 battle cruisers he rooled a natural 18!!!
Triarius actual dice roll!!
The secondary part of the plan consisted of Chief Maple and the crack security squad the Maple Leafs beaming into the Klingon base and phasering their way through the opposition to get captain Cade!  During the battle on the base, everyone's favorite NPC "Buttons" used the klingon transporter to beam a hardened group of Warriors into space so the Chief could get through to the Captain!

Cade & Kohlac, head of House B'ol'Oth
As the Maple Leaf's burst in on the Klingons attempting to burn out the last Cade's brain with the Mind-Sifter Chief Maple destroyed the device and the Captain who rolled an AMAZING resistance check broke free from his shackles and put Kohlac in a choke-hold until he went unconscious!!

The renegade Klingons were turned over to the Empire never to be seen again, and the Argo returned to Starbase 13.

Captain Cade awoke to find himself looking at the face of his brother Pryce. Quite a surprise.

Scene 4A Starbase 13:

Cade:
Pryce? why are you here.

Pryce Grim:
You're my little brother whether you like it or not. Besides when I heard what happened I had to be here for you.

Cade:
I don't know what to say, I thought you were..

Pryce:
A bit of a dick? I think we should stop letting our father get in the way of things between us. What do you say?

Cade:
[Sitting up in bed] I think, I would like that a lot.

[The door to the room opens and Admiral Grim enters.]

Admiral Grim:
Pryce, Cade. I see you pulled through. You actually did it, I didn't think you had it in you.

[Leaping from his bed and slugging the Admiral right in the jaw!]

Cade:
You're lost to me. [standing over the Admiral fists clenched tight.]

Pryce:
You'd better leave. [ helping his brother back to bed]

[Admiral Grim gets to his feet and quietly leaves the room.]

Pryce:
Father is going to have a lot to deal with on his own. But we will always have each other.

Cade:
[smiles, tears in his eyes]


THE END of FAR TREK season 1


I hope you all enjoyed this as much as we did playing it. So much of what happened was off the cuff and/or the culmination of ideas supplied by the players and their backgrounds. Don't worry the crew of the USS ARGO will be back for a Season 2 sometime in late summer 2018 and we hope to see you guys there following our episodes!!

Thank you all, and the BIGGEST thanks to C.R. Brandon for whom without FAR TREK none of this would have happened!!!