Episode 19: Passing in the Night

163. Back on the Nightingale, the aliens saved from the escape pods have been healed to a point where they can speak but the universal translator isn’t working properly. Captain McHenry sends the crack team of Gary and Kuzon.

164. The nurse and EMH greet them and show them to the aliens. They are grey/white, with wide set eyes and forehead ridges. They are otherwise humanoid, they appear to be adapted to underground living. The universal translator seems to be catching a word or two but not much. They are burned and have residual radiation poisoning.

165. The main guy talks quickly at Kuzon, Kuzon tries to act out the role of the Nurse and EMH but it doesn’t fully work. The EMH finishes up a scan McHenry asked for and discover that these aliens are related to the Kierans. The nurse shows the group an image of Galar and they freak out, cowering and hiding in the back of their force field, and the Nurse falls prone, getting a full on blast of empathic something. The EMH reads her stats, some sort of heart attack. The EMH sedates her.

166. Kuzon turns off the image of Galar and the aliens relax slightly. Kuzon then shows them a map of EVERYTHING. No response. She makes them some food known to be eaten by the Kierans. The aliens freak out a bit when Kuzon passes through the force field to hand them the food but they cower so Kuzon places the food on the floor and leaves. The main guy crawls over to the bowl, tries it, then confirms to the other aliens that it’s edible. They dig in, leaning around and sitting on the floor relaxing. Kuzon sits on the floor and eats some of the same food in an attempt to ingratiate herself to them.

167. Skeek fixes up the ship real sweet and calls up Captain to tell him. Captain goes to cruising speed, warp 6 (upon Lora’s recommendation).

168. Back on the shuttle: Nylund picks up a distress signal. It’s the Bellerophon, one of the ships stationed at Narendra. Prell scans like a motherfucker, doesn’t get any more info but does pick up that there seems to be a Dolrean suicide ship in the vicinity.

169. Back on the Nightingale: Success! They come around to each other and the main guy finally understands enough to correct Kuzon’s pronunciation of their food. We get a name, this is Renn. Kuzon and Renn get talking, looks like the aliens were trying to do some sort of an experiment and it went not great. “Big, Big, explosion. A lot dead.”

170. The universal translator really picks up speed. Turns out Renn was working on this experiment that went bad. His father died in the accident. The idea was to try to make endless power out of an element called Bolreonium. Also, turns out Galar put them on this shit moon to “protect them from the Dolreans”. They fully resent him and everything he stands for. Kuzon tells them that we’re friends with Galar. Cool.

171. Lora picks up the distress signal from the Bellerophon. Kuzon is called back to the bridge to run scans and picks up the small Dolrean vessel. Narendra station, worryingly, is unreachable on comms. Zodd returns to the bridge with some grease on his head, he’s back from working with Skeek to get this place tip top.

172. We arrive to the Bellerophon actively on fucking fire. We scan the ship for life signs. The 3 humans, 3 andorian, 1 bajoran 1 vulcan and 8 dolrean. The dolrean ship is actually embedded into the Bellerophon. Unexploded. The ship is surrounded by wreckage, all Dolrean. Looks like they ran into a hive, fucked them up but barely survived.

173. Zodd pulls the captain to the side. He thinks we need to go in there to save the crew and reminding McHenry they must trigger self-destruct of the Bellerophon. McHenry opts to teleport the 8 crewmen to the Nightingale and they’ll blast the remains of the ship with the new complement of quantum torpedoes. Zodd agrees, warning against possible interference in transporting them, but it’s McHenry’s call.

174. Back on the bridge, McHenry gets Kuzon to lock on to the starfleet life signs. McHenry also calls down to prep the med bay that there was incoming casualties. Nurse Nelle is awoken by the EMH and sent running to the Transporter Room. We get a solid lock and Jones in the transporter bay gets all 8 successfully off the ship. Problem, one of them was pinned under some rubble, and now being freed, is bleeding profusely all over the teleporter pad. Jones attempts to move the bleeding crewman but just kinda makes a mess.

175. Nurse Nelle arrives to the bloodbath, does some triage, and pulls all the people that can walk to med bay. The one named character, Chief Engineer James O’Brian, is the guy who bled to death. 2 more are expertly operated on by the Nurse and EMH back in medical. Of note, a Vulcan whose brain got “scrambled egged”.

176. Hark! What ho! The Astartes shuttle hails, they had picked up the distress beacon as well, but had taken a little longer in the shuttle to arrive. Prell gives McHenry, (whom Prell was not expecting to see in the Chair), a sit rep: Dalton and Swayze, dead. As well, in fleeing the Dolreans the Captain was rendered unconscious. McHenry excuses himself from the bridge to go save the captain’s life.

177. The Astartes docks and Captain Aldrin is rushed to med bay. McHenry arrives just in time and begins saving lives. McHenry comments that, while crude, Aldrin was put back together admirably. He is expected to make a full recovery. McHenry is a hero. Then McHenry heads back to the bridge, leaving the Captain to recuperate.

178. McHenry orders Gary to fire on the Bellerophon. Lora objects, asking the captain to take a moment to beam the Dolreans off the ship into our brig. McHenry turns her down and gives the order to fire again. Lora watches on as the burning ship is obliterated on the view screen. Lora walks over to McHenry, taking of her badge and handing it to him, saying “I am remanding myself to my quarters until the Real Captain is back in charge.”