Epis­ode Num­ber: 6×08

Writ­ten by: The authors of the Shack­leton Expanse Cam­paign Guide

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 6^th Septem­ber 2025

Guest Stars:

• Vice Admir­al Mawero: Zak­dorn head of Star­fleet Stra­tegic Oper­a­tions Command.
• Mer­rin: Ori­on fix­er, agent of Star­fleet Intelligence.

Once again, I find myself without a ship, while the Lex is being repaired, and this time it looks like it might be for a while. It is going to be dif­fi­cult to keep the crew from being dis­persed into the rest of the fleet for the next few weeks.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 51748.8

Plot: Tasked with a cov­ert mis­sion to occu­pied Betazed, Com­modore Kon­in and his crew plan their operation.

The ‘A’ Plot: On their return to Star­base 12, the Lex­ing­ton crew mem­bers find them­selves without a ship for the next month or so. The seni­or officers are ini­tially occu­pied with debrief reports fol­low­ing the Battle of Valo III, and are shocked to find ele­ments of their crew are already being reas­signed to replace battle cas­u­al­ties else­where in Star­fleet, when they are finished.

Keen to avoid the same thing hap­pen­ing to his com­mand staff, Kon­in responds pos­it­ively when Vice Admir­al Mawero reappears, ask­ing if he would be will­ing to under­take a cov­ert mis­sion on behalf of Star­fleet Intel­li­gence. Mawero wants a team to travel incog­nito to occu­pied Betazed and make con­tact with the res­ist­ance groups known to be form­ing there. They would deliv­er weapons, medi­cine and oth­er sup­plies, estab­lish lines of com­mu­nic­a­tion, and bring a num­ber of VIPs out for evac­u­ation to safer worlds.

Mawero wants Kon­in to under­take this mis­sion because of both his con­nec­tions to Betazed and the pri­or mis­sion to Scorch, the Vin­Shari pris­on plan­et. Kon­in protests, point­ing out that he is from a colony, rather than Betazed itself. Mawero says he under­stands but that his famil­iarlty with the cul­ture is still valu­able. He also explains that Kon­in’s wife is on Betazed, where she had been under­go­ing treat­ment for the trauma she exper­i­enced dur­ing the loss of her ship. He agrees to take the mis­sion and is informed he will be able to plan the mis­sion him­self, put­ting his own crew togeth­er and arran­ging appro­pri­ate transport.

Kon­in wastes no time in con­tact­ing the rest of the seni­or officers. They have gen­er­ally been mak­ing them­selves use­ful over the last couple of weeks: Azon­an is super­vising repairs on Lex­ing­ton and Con­ners is help­ing out in the med­ic­al centre, oper­at­ing on battle cas­u­al­ties. Quinn and Raynor, mean­while, have been less busy, and Kon­in finds them play­ing tongo in one of the sta­tion’s bars. Kon­in requests that Boone find him a demoli­tions expert, and sug­gest some options for dis­crete transport.

The group gath­ers in the back room of one of the sta­tion drink­ing estab­lish­ments, as arranged by the com­modore. Boone arrives first, bring­ing two guests, Ensign Georg Elser, who recently dis­tin­guished him­self by defus­ing a Domin­ion tor­pedo, and an Ori­on he intro­duces as Mer­rin, a Star­fleet Intel­li­gence asset work­ing inside the Syn­dic­ate. Raynor and Boone both check for sur­veil­lance devices as the oth­ers arrive, and Kon­in lays out a rather ancient drink. Before they get star­ted, Com­mand­er Akul strides in, to the sur­prise of most, bring­ing a bottle of blood wine, with gob­lets for him­self, Kon­in and Conners.

Kon­in opens the meet­ing by describ­ing the mis­sion, then asks for sug­ges­tions as to how they achieve it. A primary dis­cus­sion revolves around how they will travel, with the use of a cloaked ves­sel a clear favour­ite. Akul tells them he can spare a B’rel-class bird-of-prey, but it is a bit too small for the cargo they are likely to be car­ry­ing. Sug­ges­tions of a D‑12 are laughed off imme­di­ately, as he points out that there is a reas­on these ships were aban­doned: the shield and propul­sion sys­tems tend to shut down without warn­ing as the cloak­ing device is deactivated.

The Ori­on, Mer­rin, speaks up, explain­ing that he has access to a num­ber of ships that he can make avail­able, all with a fairly dis­crete pro­file. He does have a D‑12, but agrees with Akul’s assess­ment, maybe they would like to use the Fal­con? This turns out to be a salvaged Romu­lan sci­ence ves­sel, with a func­tion­ing cloak­ing device. After some debate, they agree to use the Fal­con in return for a favour that would be taken up later.

In terms of dis­guise, Con­ners explains that sur­gic­al alter­a­tion to resemble Jem’Hadar would be very dif­fi­cult, and that make-up would not pass muster. Since most of the group resemble Betazoids, they decide not to try this, but they will carry Domin­ion weapons.

Turn­ing their atten­tion to their planned cargo, they find rep­lic­at­ors, phaser weaponry and explos­ives, along with med­ic­al sup­plies and sub­space com­mu­nic­a­tions sys­tems. The list of evacu­ees includes politi­cians, Star­fleet per­son­nel and one Lwax­ana Troi…

They arrange to pick up the Fal­con at Sta­tion AN-7b, an aban­doned research out­post on the edge of the Arach­nid Neb­ula in a week’s time, and Mer­rin heads out to organ­ise this. Akul offers to ferry the team there on one of his squad­ron’s routine patrols.

The Fal­con is wait­ing in the land­ing bay of the sta­tion, look­ing a little odd in its very un-Romu­lan grey and black splinter cam­ou­flage. Mer­rin explains that the ves­sel had been aban­doned on a plan­et near the Romu­lan Neut­ral Zone and salvaged by the Syn­dic­ate. They repaired it and used it for the “dis­crete trans­port of high-value mer­chand­ise”. He shows them around, then leaves on his own shuttle. Akul also departs, leav­ing them to load equip­ment onto the ship and get to know their new home. It’s very cramped but should do the job.

Before long, they are pre­par­ing to leave, and plot a course towards Domin­ion-occu­pied space, trav­el­ing at a sed­ate warp 5. Not­ing patrols of Jem’Hadar fight­ers, they slow to around warp 2 as they cross the fron­ti­er, in order to min­im­ise the chance of being detec­ted. They get through, but then Selvek spots 2 fight­ers on an inter­cept course towards them…

Obser­va­tions: It appears that Atani Kon­in has nev­er been to Betazed, hav­ing grown up on a Betazoid colony.

Mer­rin is a trus­ted agent of Star­fleet Intel­li­gence, work­ing with­in the Ori­on Syn­dic­ate as a fix­er. One of his Syn­dic­ate respons­ib­il­it­ies is coordin­at­ing trans­port, and he has access to a num­ber of spe­cial­ised spacecraft.

The Fal­con is a salvaged Romu­lan sci­ence ves­sel, its interi­or out­fit­ted in a mix of Romu­lan, Star­fleet and Ori­on tech­no­logy. Its labor­at­or­ies and advanced sensor sys­tems have been stripped out and replaced with cargo holds. The quantum sin­gu­lar­ity power core and cloak­ing device have been kept in work­ing condition.

Ref­er­ences: Betazed, the home­world of the Betazoids is a class‑M plan­et, and has been a mem­ber of the Fed­er­a­tion for over a cen­tury. Loc­ated close to the former Car­das­si­an Demil­tar­ised Zone, it was occu­pied by the Domin­ion in a sur­prise attack. The occu­pa­tion is rumoured to be heavy-handed, with the inhab­it­ants being forced to work to sup­port the Domin­ion’s war effort.