A Doomsday Like Any Other Part 1

Captain's Log, Stardate 40191.2

Since our last mission, one significant thing has changed. Lieutenant Commander Vanek was transferred to Starbase 20 and a Bajoran, Dyan Hazor has taken his place as the Chief of Engineering.

Due to increasing problems with piracy, the Niven was sent out to a remote area of Federation space commonly referred to as The Outback. Sure enough, we soon received a distress call from a ship about one half Earth hour away from where we were. Lieutenant Kingman plotted an intercept course, despite the trouble with communication we were having with the ship. When we arrived at the scene, we saw the cause for the signal interference: a damaged Orion trading ship was being pursued by a Doomsday Machine. We were hailed by a Captain Patrick O'Flaherty of the Pride 'o Rigel who said they were caught in the machine's tractor beam and requested help. We fired torpedoes at the machine's hull to distract it. It turned towards us just long enough to release the merchant ship, but resumed its original pursuit after a few moments.