Epis­ode Num­ber: 3×15

Writ­ten by: Jon Crew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 27^th Janu­ary 2024

Guest Stars:

• Mas­ter Chief Petty Officer Tiene: Chief of sta­tion shuttle operations
• Com­mand­er Nat­alie Sig­mund: Com­mand­ing officer of the U.S.S. Cass NCC-72667

Fol­low­ing Gowron’s declar­a­tion of war, street­fight­ing has broken out in the Gal­ler­ia between our secur­ity teams and the Klin­gon war­ri­ors. On the far side of this battle, three of my officers are invest­ig­at­ing sab­ot­age in the depths of the station.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 49986.7

Plot: Admir­al Heber­t’s forces fight a des­per­ate rear­guard action as the Klin­gons over­whelm the sta­tion’s defences.

The ‘A’ Plot: Raynor, Zepht and Azon­an are des­cend­ing a lad­der in one of the main con­duit shafts in the depths of the sta­tion. It extends as far as the eye can see in both dir­ec­tions, and even though they know there are safety fields in place in case of falls, it’s ver­­tigo-indu­­cing. Reach­ing the des­ig­nated level, Azon­an unlocks an access pan­el and they exit into a stand­ard cor­ridor. The lights come on as they enter, reveal­ing a lay­er of dust and some debris; small creatures that may be rats or voles scat­ter into the dark­ness. Azon­an makes a men­tal note to com­plain to the sta­tion’s engin­eer­ing chief.

They walk cau­tiously for a couple of hun­dred metres, scan­ning for both booby traps and life-signs as they go. Zeph­t’s tri­cord­er gives the first warn­ing as they reach their tar­get area: four Klin­gon lifesigns, two in the cor­ridor, two in crawl­ways. Expect­ing a hos­tile recep­tion, they make extens­ive pre­par­a­tions to sur­prise the Klin­gons: Azon­an dis­con­nects the open­ing mech­an­ism for the door, so that it won’t make any noise, and then Raynor cau­tiously opens it and fires a phaser on wide-angle stun. Both Klin­gons stand­ing guard in the cor­ridor go down, although they make quite a bit of noise as they fall.

Hav­ing min­im­ised the chance of being attacked from behind, Raynor leads the trio into the crawl­way on the right, access­ing a major EPS con­duit; Azon­an stops to grab a mek’­leth before join­ing them. With­in, they spot a Klin­gon work­ing at an open pan­el. Raynor imme­di­ately stuns him, before mov­ing the slum­ber­ing body out of the way so Azon­an can check what he was doing. The engin­eer is a bit stumped: there appears to be an explos­ive device wrapped around the con­duit, but it’s Star­fleet tech­no­logy, not Klin­gon. It looks like the saboteur had dis­abled it.

While they’re try­ing to fig­ure out what the Klin­gon was up to, a dis­ruptor blast comes from fur­ther down the crawl­way, vapour­ising the uncon­scious war­ri­or and just miss­ing Raynor. The secur­ity chief reacts quickly, scram­bling towards the assail­ant and knock­ing him out with a single punch. Mean­while, Azon­an and Zepht con­clude that the sab­ot­age device is a Star­fleet failsafe in case the Klin­gons turn hos­tile, and Azon­an rein­states the connections.

They repeat the pro­cess more cau­tiously on the oth­er side of the cor­ridor, dis­cov­er­ing (and stun­ning) two more Klin­gons in the crawlspace, and then find­ing the explos­ives they had added to con­trol sys­tems for the shields. Raynor also dis­cov­ers a mys­ter­i­ous black and sil­ver com­badge hid­den in a corner, which he does­n’t recog­nise, although it’s obvi­ously of Star­fleet origin.

The trio return to the main access shaft, so they can report their find­ings, before mov­ing to a des­ig­nated intra-sta­­tion beam­ing plat­form to return to the com­mand deck.

The ‘B’ Plot: Mean­while, the oth­er officers are in the com­mand centre as hos­til­it­ies begin. Klin­gon war­ri­ors are already enga­ging Star­fleet Secur­ity and armed board­ing defence teams on the gal­ler­ia as two K’vort-class cruis­ers decloak and open fire on U.S.S. Golden Hind and U.S.S. Kumari. The Golden Hind takes some dam­age, but the older Mir­anda-class Kumari is reduced to a drift­ing hulk before her crew can respond. U.S.S. Minotaur and U.S.S. Cour­ageous retali­ate imme­di­ately, chas­ing the two Klin­gon ships away from the station.

The sta­tion’s shields are already up, but Kon­in imme­di­ately moves to dir­ect the defence, order­ing the tac­tic­al team to begin fir­ing on the Klin­gon pen­al bat­talion led by I.K.S. MoH be’N­al. Akul’s Mup­wI’ moves out to take on Thun­der­child, cur­rently cov­er­ing the evac­u­at­ing civil­ian vessels.

Once Raynor and his col­leagues return from their mis­sion and report their find­ings, Hebert gives Kon­in per­mis­sion to try to get to Lex­ing­ton, still in dry­dock on the far side of the plan­et. Quinn believes he can pilot a run­about through the battle, so they call down to the hangar facil­ity to arrange this. Unfor­tu­nately, all four of the sta­tion’s run­abouts have just joined the battle, so MCPO Tiene offers to prep a shuttle­craft instead.

Kon­in and his team grab phaser rifles and begin to des­cend one of the less well-known stair­cases to the hangar level. They get involved in a couple of fire­fights, leav­ing Zepht and Quinn with burns, before emer­ging into the shuttle hangar, where an intense battle is tak­ing place. Tiene dir­ects them to a type‑6 shuttle­craft behind a make­shift bar­ri­cade, and they scramble to get inside and get the shields up. Quinn has taken anoth­er dis­ruptor hit and is quite badly injured, so Kon­in attempts to patch him up a bit while the oth­ers get settled.

Out­side, the battle con­tin­ues: two of the pen­al bat­talion cruis­ers have been dam­aged, with I.K.S. Dugh­woQ dis­abled. Thun­der­child is exchan­ging heavy fire with Mup­wI’, while her fight­ers are involved in a com­plex dog­fight with two B’rel-class birds-of-prey that have attacked the civil­ians. Cour­ageous is chas­ing the K’vort-class cruis­er Qo’Qagh back towards the sta­tion; Minotaur and the oth­er K’vort are both dis­abled, the lat­ter drift­ing lifeless.

Quinn devises a dar­ing plan that involves fly­ing the shuttle with­in the sta­tion’s shields to a spe­cif­ic point, then a fast trans­it at warp speed towards Lex­ing­ton, hop­ing to avoid becom­ing a tar­get by being impossible to spot. The basic prin­ciple seems sound, but the vec­tor takes them straight through a dog­fight between the sta­tion’s run­abouts and their former com­rades in the Klin­gon con­tin­gent’s Qo’Toch-class heavy fight­ers. He man­ages to avoid a col­li­sion, then the shuttle finds itself in the crosshairs of newly-arrived Klin­gon fighters.

Unable to avoid their dis­ruptor fire, the shuttle dis­in­teg­rates, but the crew find them­selves mater­i­al­ising in the darkened com­mand pod of a Danube-class run­about. Com­mand­er Sig­mund wel­comes them aboard and tells them she’ll deliv­er them to Lex­ing­ton moment­ar­ily. Kon­in looks out the for­ward view­port and real­ises the Cass is cloaked, but decides against ask­ing any awk­ward questions.

The “Lady Lex” is powered up and ready for action, so Kon­in orders her into the fray, attract­ing Mup­wI’s atten­tion and open­ing a chan­nel to Hebert. Things look grim: Hebert admits the battle is lost, and that she has been unable to trig­ger the self-destruct sequence for the sta­tion. She notes that the evac­u­ation is almost com­plete, and just in time: three new Klin­gon ves­sels have just arrived, a pair of Pach’Nom-class assault ships and the Vor’cha-class I.K.S. Chang.

A vol­ley of tor­pedoes from her new weapons pod slams into Qo’Qagh, blast­ing her star­board wing away. The crippled cruis­er spins out of their way, and Lex­ing­ton passes close to the top sec­tion of the sta­tion, beam­ing out all remain­ing Star­fleet per­son­nel, includ­ing the admir­al, before jump­ing to warp. As they leave, they receive a brief mes­sage from Akul, look­ing for­ward to finally bat­tling in the future.

The Arc: Star­fleet has lost con­trol of Nar­en­dra Sta­tion and its stra­tegic loc­a­tion on the edge of the Shack­leton Expanse.

Obser­va­tions: There is more to Com­mand­er Nat­alie Sig­mund than it appears: it looks like the U.S.S. Cass pos­sesses a cloak­ing device. This is, of course, illeg­al under the Treaty of Algeron.

The ships involved in the battle include:

Star­fleet:

• U.S.S. Lex­ing­ton (Neb­ula-class)
• U.S.S. Thun­der­child (Akira-class)
• U.S.S. Golden Hind (Neb­ula-class) (lost)
• U.S.S. Kumari (Mir­anda-class) (lost)
• U.S.S. Cour­ageous (Defi­ant-class)
• U.S.S. Minotaur (Cen­taur-class)
• U.S.S. Platte (Danube-class) (lost)
• U.S.S. Severn (Danube-class)
• U.S.S. Rhine (Danube-class)
• U.S.S. Zam­bezi (Danube-class)
• 8 Per­eg­rine-class attack fight­ers (4 lost)

Klin­gon Defence Force:

• I.K.S. Mup­wI’ (K’Vort-class)
• I.K.S. MoH be’Nal (K’t’inga-class)
• I.K.S. Dugh­woQ (K’t’inga-class) (lost)
• I.K.S. BoHDuS (K’t’inga-class)
• I.K.S. Mulbe’Hom (K’Vort-class) (lost)
• I.K.S. Qo’Qagh (K’Vort-class)
• I.K.S. Morath (B’rel-class) (lost)
• I.K.S. DoqHo’ (B’rel-class) (lost)
• I.K.S. Chang (Vor’cha-class)
• I.K.S. Prax­is (Pach’Nom-class)
• I.K.S. Sep­wI’ (Pach’Hom-class)
• 6 Qo’Toch-class heavy fight­ers (4 lost)

Ref­er­ences: The black and sil­ver com­badge found by Raynor is very sim­il­ar to those seen in Star Trek: Dis­cov­ery and used by Sec­tion 31.

Ques­tions: This is the end of sea­son 3, and the sta­tion is lost. It remains to be seen how the war will affect the ongo­ing Pro­ject Dia­mond Hedge.