Epis­ode Num­ber: 5×18

Writ­ten by: Tony Pi

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 26^th July 2025

Guest Stars:

• Lieu­ten­ant Com­mand­er Bizel Hox: Injured Trill stra­tegic analyst.
• Vice Admir­al Mawero: Zak­dorn head of Star­fleet Stra­tegic Oper­a­tions Command.
• Doc­tor Morott: Bol­i­an Chief Sur­geon at Star­base 12.
• Mawer­o’s Tac­tic­al Holo­gram.

Bizel Hox’s injury has led to a series of V.I.P.s com­ing to the sta­tion: admir­als, fleet com­mand­ers and ana­lysts are all turn­ing up to con­sult with her. The latest is Vice Admir­al Mawero, the notori­ously crit­ic­al head of Star­fleet’s Stra­tegic Oper­a­tions Com­mand. For some reas­on, our own Admir­al Sh’lyath has chosen now to take the fleet out to prac­tise man­oeuvres near Cor­id­an, leav­ing me in charge of the station.

Mawero is liv­ing up to his repu­ta­tion: I feel attacked by his com­plaints even though I’ve only been here a few weeks.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 51604.0

Plot: A vis­it from a seni­or admir­al is inter­rup­ted by both a med­ic­al emer­gency and a Jem’Hadar attack.

The ‘A’ Plot: Three weeks after the battle in the 25 Erid­ani Neb­ula, Star­base 12 has received a series of vis­its by Star­fleet not­ables vis­it­ing the recu­per­at­ing Bizel Hox. One day, Rear Admir­al Sh’lyath sud­denly announces fleet war­games near Cor­id­an, and places Com­modore Kon­in in charge of the sta­tion dur­ing his absence. Kon­in soon learns that Vice Admir­al Mawero, the notori­ously fussy Zak­dorn head of Stra­tegic Oper­a­tions is visiting.

The admir­al arrives aboard the U.S.S. Luna, a sleek new star­ship which heads on towards Klin­gon space after drop­ping him off. On enter­ing the sta­tion, he imme­di­ately heads to the oper­a­tions centre, where Kon­in receives him in the com­mand­er­’s office. He notes the lack of excess­ive dec­or­a­tion in the office with some approv­al; Kon­in is aware that Sh’lyath took it all down before his depar­ture, but decides not to men­tion this. He also com­ments briefly on Kon­in’s record to date, before request­ing time with Hox.

Kon­in con­tacts the med­ic­al centre to arrange the admir­al’s vis­it, then sum­mons Raynor to provide an escort for him. Mawero passes the time by observing the staff’s work in the oper­a­tions centre and offer­ing con­struct­ive cri­ti­cism. When Raynor arrives, he is stand­ing behind a very nervous ensign con­duct­ing traffic man­age­ment as a con­voy of trans­ports arrives. He gains the Zak­dorn’s atten­tion and tries to dis­tract him by ask­ing him about sta­tion secur­ity arrange­ments, but the admir­al points out that this is really below his level of responsibility.

Azon­an is on Lex­ing­ton, over­see­ing the repairs to shut­tle­bay 2 fol­low­ing the run­about crash. La Plata was effect­ively des­troyed in the incid­ent, and has been removed to be stripped for spare parts. The main shut­tle­bay doors are being com­pletely replaced, and engin­eers are out in work­bees, oper­at­ing inside an exten­ded life sup­port force field. Quinn, mean­while, has com­menced a series of lec­tures on com­bat pilot­ing in the star­base’s train­ing centre.

About 40 minutes after the admir­al’s arrival, Raynor receives the go-ahead from the med­ic­al centre, and takes him to meet Bizel Hox, before retreat­ing to review Mawer­o’s sug­ges­tions for his secur­ity plans. Sud­denly, alarms sound, and emer­gency med­ic­al staff mem­bers con­verge on Hox’s cubicle. Raynor is denied access, but he sees a trol­ley being rushed into the oper­at­ing theatre. He is finally able to get an answer from one of the nurses: Mawero com­plained about his breath­ing, then collapsed.

He imme­di­ately sum­mons Kon­in, who arrives in minutes, ask­ing to speak to the seni­or doc­tor. It is some time before the doc­tor will be avail­able, so Raynor over­rides the rel­ev­ant secur­ity pro­to­cols to get access to the Zak­dorn’s med­ic­al records, dis­cov­er­ing that he has a syn­thet­ic lung. Doc­tor Morott emerges briefly to explain that the admir­al is suf­fer­ing from a rap­idly pro­gress­ing bac­teri­al infec­tion, and that his lung is fail­ing. The lung needs to be replaced or he will die.

Kon­in imme­di­ately con­tacts the com­mand centre to organ­ise a call to Star­fleet Com­mand, but is inter­rup­ted as a dif­fer­ent set of alarms go off. He asks for an update and is informed that fight­ing has broken out on the dock­ing level, and that the duty secur­ity teams are being over­whelmed. He author­ises the activ­a­tion of all secur­ity per­son­nel and heads for the com­mand floor, leav­ing Raynor to keep an eye on the oper­at­ing theatre.

As he arrives, a Jem’Hadar fight­er swoops across the main viewscreen, and he is informed that there are a dozen of them attack­ing the sta­tion, and that the fight in the dock­ing bay involves sev­er­al dozen Jem’Hadar sol­diers. He con­tacts Zohir aboard the Lex­ing­ton and orders him to sup­ply secur­ity and board­ing defence-trained per­son­nel to provide aid against the intruders, then take the ship out to com­bat the fight­ers, as the only armed ship in the system.

Azon­an, join­ing the secur­ity teams head­ing out to battle the Jem’Hadar, passes Quinn, run­ning back to Lex­ing­ton, in the dock­ing tunnel.

Azon­an dis­cov­ers that the incom­ing trans­ports dis­gorged dozens of Jem’Hadar as they docked, who imme­di­ately set up a peri­met­er and began work­ing towards the lifts, killing any­one in their way. He organ­ises cov­er­ing fire from the defence per­son­nel, then leads the bet­ter-trained secur­ity teams in an assault to split the invaders into two groups.

Zohir orders Quinn to take Lex­ing­ton out into the battle, attempt­ing to draw the fight­ers away from the sta­tion. They’re not much of a threat to the star­base’s shields, but are caus­ing a major dis­trac­tion to the com­mand centre, where Kon­in is try­ing to coordin­ate defence. The com­mu­nic­a­tions chief man­ages to get a call through to Star­fleet Com­mand, who he informs of the attack, before also try­ing to con­tact Sh’lyath.

In the med­ic­al centre, Raynor is attempt­ing to lock down the entrances, but is real­ising that the facil­ity is not really designed for defence. A dozen Jem’Hadar sud­denly beam into the recep­tion area, so he enacts a fall­back plan, shoot­ing a can­nis­ter near the door, which begins dis­char­ging anes­th­iz­ine into the room, where the unsus­pect­ing sol­diers are quickly affected. The Jem’Hadar First shoots at Raynor, but the secur­ity chief takes him on hand-to-hand, knock­ing him out after a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. Anoth­er group of sol­diers shoot at him, but are over­whelmed by the gas before they can hit him.

The vent­il­a­tion sys­tems clear the atmo­sphere in the com­plex before Raynor suc­cumbs, and he fights off the effects as he searches for Hox. He finds that a nurse has attemp­ted to evac­u­ate her into a side pas­sage, but both are now uncon­scious. Since she is of sig­ni­fic­ant import­ance, he takes the handles of Hox’s wheel­chair and brings her with him as he invest­ig­ates the situ­ation near the oper­at­ing theatre. He finds anoth­er group of uncon­scious Jem’Hadar next to the main entrance, which they had demol­ished, then dives for cov­er as a sol­dier shoots at him from cov­er near the theatre entrance.

Azon­an and his force suc­ceeds in isol­at­ing and defeat­ing the Jem’Hadar onslaught in the dock­ing area, and Kon­in asks him to invest­ig­ate the loss of con­tact with the med­ic­al centre. He and his squad arrive to see Raynor try­ing to break through the door into the ante­cham­ber to the theatre, Hox still uncon­scious in her chair nearby. Look­ing through the win­dow, they can see a Jem’Hadar team attempt­ing to gain access to the theatre itself.

The Lex­ing­ton officers man­age to break the door down, but find a port­able force field on the oth­er side. With­in, the inner door finally opens, but one of the sol­diers is imme­di­ately vapour­ised by a phaser shot from with­in. As the Jem’Hadar begin fir­ing back into the room, Azon­an quickly assembles a ver­sion of his force-field break­ing device.

Out­side the sta­tion, Lex­ing­ton has des­troyed most of the remain­ing fight­ers, but Quinn notices one try­ing to ram the com­mand centre. Without wait­ing for orders, he inter­poses the sau­cer at an angle into its path, deflect­ing the small craft into the wreck­age of its fellows.

Azon­an suc­ceeds in bring­ing down the Jem’Hadar force-field, but is grazed by a shot from the First. Angered, he charges him and a brief kar’­takin vs ush­aan-tor battle ensues. Ulti­mately, the Andori­an is blood­ied but wins. Most of the assault team are con­tinu­ing their fire­fight with the unknown defend­er in the theatre, but Raynor is dis­trac­ted by a lone Jem’Hadar frantic­ally work­ing at a con­trol pan­el; he shoots him, but is unable to fig­ure out what he was doing.

The last Jem’Hadar are dis­in­teg­rated one by one, then a single, small Andori­an woman hold­ing a phaser rifle appears in the door­way. Azon­an and Raynor inform her that they are there to help, but she refuses to let them in, say­ing noth­ing. When she fails to respond to reas­on, they real­ise she is a holo­gram, pre­sum­ably pro­grammed with tac­tic­al skills. She remains in the door­way, refus­ing to let any­one past, until the sur­geons fin­ish their work.

Across the star­base, the battle is over, with numer­ous Jem’Hadar cas­u­al­ties, and the wreck­age of a dozen fight­ers float­ing out­side. The com­mand centre detects a cloaked ves­sel going to warp, shortly before the 17^th Fleet returns, too late to help.

The Arc: This marks the crew’s first fight with the Domin­ion’s notori­ous Jem’Hadar soldiers.

Obser­va­tions: The Jem’Hadar boarded the sta­tion from hijacked civil­ian trans­ports, then more were beamed into the star­base’s engin­eer­ing sec­tion. All of this was a dis­trac­tion to the raid on the med­ic­al centre, designed to cap­ture Vice Admir­al Mawero and Bizel Hox. The sol­diers were car­ry­ing pat­tern enhan­cers, indic­at­ing that they planned to beam them out, prob­ably to the cloaked ves­sel, which may have been the same Kel­don-class ves­sel seen in “Tox­ic”.

Mawero has a tac­tic­al holo­gram as a body­guard, based on EMH tech­no­logy. She appears as a small Andori­an female, and while she is an expert shot, she does not seem cap­able of talking.

It appears that Zak­dorn have a single lung. Mawer­o’s has already been replaced with a syn­thet­ic sub­sti­tute, which is vul­ner­able to cer­tain kinds of bac­teri­al infection.

While all star­ships have secur­ity per­son­nel trained in tac­tic­al com­bat, their num­bers are typ­ic­ally small, and they could be rap­idly over­whelmed if the ship were to be boarded by a large num­ber of hos­tile war­ri­ors. For this reas­on, all officers and enlis­ted per­son­nel are trained in phaser use, and many volun­teer to be part of board­ing-defence units, receiv­ing train­ing in small unit tac­tics and cor­ridor defence tech­niques, so that they can rein­force the more cap­able secur­ity teams.

Lex­ing­ton’s shields have been refit­ted to be able to res­ist Jem’Hadar disruptors.

Ref­er­ences: The U.S.S. Luna, NCC-80101, is the first of the Luna-class cruis­ers, a more cap­able sis­ter design to the Intrep­id-class, equipped with soph­ist­ic­ated engines and an inter­change­able mis­sion pod, sim­il­ar to that used by the Neb­ula. At this point, the Luna is the only example of this class, as pro­duc­tion has been inter­rup­ted by the war.

Azon­an recre­ates his force-field break­ing device from “The Ori­on Heist”.

Anes­th­iz­ine is an anaes­thet­ic gas, inten­ded for med­ic­al use, but com­monly used to quell riots and cap­ture intruders. It is likely the Jem’Hadar were not aware of its likely use, as it can be countered by appro­pri­ate stimulants.