Star Trek Triangle Missions The Motion Picture: Core Values Part 1

Captain's Log, Stardate 42620.5

We were back on patrol after the events on Psellus III when Lieutenant Joran Maniersi informed me that a message coded Security Code 2 Alpha came in from Vice Admiral Tom Nelson. I asked him to send it to my ready room and the news I received was troubling. The USS Blackheart was declared missing.

Gone Missing

My poor ship was still suffering from the firefight it was involved in a week ago so I knew our warp engines were still a little damaged. I asked Lieutenant Commander Hazor Dyan what our safest maximum warp was and with a bit of hesitation, he said that it was 8.5. I immediately gave the order to set a course for the coordinates Admiral Nelson sent and to engage at warp 8.5.

The journey took us five days, but we arrived at the rendezvous point without incident and the USS Mercury was there waiting for us. I took along Hazor, Maniersi, Lieutenant Commander Akoval th'Idrani lorTheel'zhiin, and Dr Matthew O'Grady. Master Chief St. Claire met us in the transporter room and escorted us to the conference room to meet with Admiral Nelson. The ship itself was very sleek, but I noticed that the interior seemed far smaller than what I thought it would be judging from the outside.

When we began the meeting, we were given copies of mission logs from the Blackheart. Given that losing the flagship vessel in the Triangle fleet was something that our enemies would undoubtedly use against us, this mission to be considered top secret and only be shared with my Senior Staff. Our top priority is to retrieve the crew. Salvaging the ship would be ideal, but to be considered secondary. If it was not possible for us to tractor or tow it back to starbase, we were to scuttle it. We were to maintain radio silence and in the event we had to make contact, we were to send all transmissions with the strongest encryption available.

Their last known location was in the Doran System which was thought to be uninhabited and their last contact was 14 days ago. The system was located on the far end of The Triangle, near Romulan space. We set a course for it and arrived in a little over a day. We encountered plenty of debris, but none of it was thought to be starship hull fragments, though pieces of processed neutronium was present. In doing a scan, Lieutenant Silon reported that there was a medium sized planetoid near the exterior edge of the system.

Doran

We decided to approach the planetoid and Maniersi mentioned that there were old scans of the planetoid from the Constitution Class USS Eagle from 2144. In doing our own scans, we found a man-made, collapsed rock arch that contained trace metals. I assembled an away team of Silon, Senior Chief Petty Officer Michael Standown, Sergeant Major Michael Pierson, Corporal Gral, and Corporal Thylek Shyras, and sent them down by shuttlecraft piloted by Maniersi. Surface scans concluded that the arch was around 25,000 to 30,000 years old and there were faint energy discharges. It had been collapsed for a long time and the energy was dissipating quickly. Silon mentioned that he could see a resemblance with an Iconian warp gate.

During this time, Hazor found the source of our troubles with the warp engines being a bad plasma injector. He said he needed to take it offline in order to repair it. Remembering the last time we were stuck in a precarious position with no warp engines, I demanded that he made the repairs swiftly. The away team returned to the ship with a beacon from the Blackheart, confirming that they were, indeed, here at one point. It contained a supposed flight path traveling form here to an area near Ectair. The curious thing was that there was a bend in the path instead of going straight to the destination. Silon said that the area the path avoids is a known dark matter mass. Thinking that may be a point of interest, we set a course to the bend to see if we could find anything. With the plasma injector repaired, we were able to travel at warp 9.

The Bend in the Road

We slowed to impulse when we reached our destination and found a lot of duranium debris. Knowing that Starfleet creates starship hulls out of duranium, this gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Suddenly, seven ships came out of warp right in front of us. I recognized an old Klingon Bird of Prey, a Gorn cruiser, and two Orion freighters. The other three were unfamiliar to me, but all ships were small to medium in size compared to us. The ships began closing the distance between us and did not respond to our hails. After a few warning shots, the real fight broke out.

During the fight, a shout from main engineering came through the comm system saying that Lieutenant, Junior Grade Georgi Kurgotzov had been trapped inside the plasma injector and was contaminated with radiation. The marines were sent down for damage control and through the chaos, I heard someone blowing a hole through the containment wall, presumably to get Kurgotzov out. I couldn't focus my full attention on engineering as I had seven ships to contend with, but thanks to Maniersi maneuvering us around, a lot of the shots taken at us ended up hitting the Bird of Prey right next to us.

Abandon Ship?!

The next thing I knew, Ensign Wilhelma Urkowski was kneeling over me on the floor, shaking me awake. Blood was in my eyes and the whole bridge was in disarray. All of the computer panels were dark and there was smoke everywhere. Apparently the Bird of Prey had exploded at point-blank range to us. She said that we needed to evacuate the ship because the damage sustained was critical and we were being boarded. The senior officers were gathered in the tactical pod of the ship. First Lieutenant William Weaver and Lance Corporal Mark McMillian were shouting orders to leave, but even despite a broken leg, Command Master Chief Petty Officer Spencer Harlock and Lieutenant, Junior Grade Sarpek refused saying they would hold the bridge. Maniersi suggested that he launch a shuttle in order to see what was going on from the outside. I nodded and shakily stood up.

Thinking I was actually complying with their requests, McMillian began escorting me toward where Urkowski was waiting. However, as soon as I found my footing, I shouted orders telling Silon, Harlock, Sarpek, and Weaver to hold the bridge, Urkowski to act as a "messenger" between the bridge and the tactical pod, and that McMillian was coming with me to see what was going on. I grabbed a phaser on my way out and, of course, he protested, saying he was under orders to see me to safety, but I pulled rank on him saying that he was under my orders now. Like hell I was going to abandon my ship without knowing what was going on!

Boarding Parties

Just one deck below the bridge in a hallway, First Sergeant Stanley VanDriessen and three marines were hunkered down, shooting an onslaught of hulking, six-limbed, alien creatures. It took quite a few shots to bring them down so McMillian and I stepped in to assist them. VanDriessen barked at McMillian saying he gave orders to evacuate me off the ship and to force me out if he had to. Before I had a chance to protest, McMillian threw me in a headlock and dragged me away. Knowing I could not fight against him, I gave in and told him I would go quietly. Before we got back to the turbolift, however, the ship shook violently and the lights went out plunging us in complete darkness.

Suddenly, I found us, along with the crew I left on the bridge, aboard the Centaur. Maniersi had managed to get the shuttle launched and beamed us over. He said that there was a giant parasitic life form attached to where our warp core, that was probably ejected some time during the fight, should have been. In scanning for life signs on the other six ships, they seemed to be sparsely populated with the Gorn cruiser being in the best shape of all of them. We devised a plan to transport the crew onto the Gorn ship for safety and to have Hazor devise an auto-shut-off sequence to cut the Niven's power to see if it would cause the creature to leave.

I had Maniersi send everyone aboard the shuttle except me onto the Gorn ship to take control of it. We all took emergency comm devices so that we could keep each other apprised. I beamed over to the tactical pod to see what the status there was. I was relieved to see about 60 of my senior officers, the entirety of Prime Team Alpha and a good number of marines as well. Captain Ian Frazier ran up to me and said, "Captain, I'm glad you're all right! We sent Weaver to go get you a while ago. Did he not make it?" I said that I had sent him on an errand. With a grin and pointed look at a certain someone I added, "You should have sent someone I would have listened to." Pierson stepped up and said, "It's good to see you." I smiled and before I had a chance to reply, he cut me off saying, "Get in the center. Please." I had to laugh at that and answered, "Yes, sir!" as I made my way to the safest part of the pod.

When Weaver commed in with confirmation that the Gorn ship was secured, I announced my plan to the gathered crew. Maniersi was going to beam those furthest away from us directly onto the Gorn ship. The pod would separate from the Niven, fly over to the Gorn ship, unload, and return. While this was going on, Prime Team would gather what crew they could find on foot and direct them here to prepare another round of personnel to shuttle over on the pod. This was to be repeated until we could evacuate the ship.

Just as we were about to put the plan into action, a ship came out of warp. It was the USS Blackheart...