Epis­ode Num­ber: 7×05

Writ­ten by: Jon Crew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 21^st March 2026

Guest Stars:

• Cap­tain Raphael Tav­ares: Retir­ing com­mand­ing officer of the U.S.S. Green­land.
• Akaru’Bak Chiel: Seni­or offi­cial in the Akaru government.

After weeks of pre­par­a­tion, we are finally ready to go and res­cue Zepht. Sup­plies are loaded, nav­ig­a­tion is plot­ted, sys­tems are in prime con­di­tion, and the crew are rar­ing to go, although our exec­ut­ive officer is still adjust­ing to his new role. We will be months away from any backup, so it is vital that everything is in place.

I am a little uneasy leav­ing the sta­tion for so long. Although we believe we know the iden­tity of those behind the recent attack, and have defences in place, the prime sus­pect has not been seen for two months and her plans are unclear. But Ash’Tamalia remains the great­er threat, and Zepht is guard­ing the know­ledge we need to defeat her.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 52179.2

Plot: Fol­low­ing a brief excur­sion to take the newly-pro­moted Zohir to his new com­mand, Lex­ing­ton finally sets out on her epic trip to the far end of the Shack­leton Expanse.

The ‘A’ Plot: Com­modore Kon­in con­tacts Cap­tain Murphy to dis­cuss arran­ging a com­mand for Zohir. A few days later, Murphy has found some­thing suit­able, the U.S.S. Green­land, an emer­gency response ship in the 20^th Fleet. Cap­tain Raphael Tav­ares is due to retire from the ser­vice soon and is will­ing to stand down a little early. Kon­in agrees that an emer­gency response ves­sel would be ideal for the Risian.

Kon­in calls his exec­ut­ive officer into the ready room and informs him of his impend­ing pro­mo­tion. Zohir is sur­prised, and sug­gests that he is not ready for com­mand, but Kon­in insists and tells him about the Green­land vacancy. Zohir asks for some time to think about it and his CO gives him two days, but then arranges with Murphy to get trans­fer orders from the admir­al in case he turns it down.

The com­modore now asks to speak to Lt Cdr Azon­an, offer­ing him the pos­i­tion of exec­ut­ive officer. Azon­an accepts with little hesitation.

Zohir later informs Kon­in that, giv­en the short­age of suit­able can­did­ates for exec­ut­ive officer roles due to the ongo­ing war, he will decline the offer. He is also con­cerned that leav­ing the ship before the mis­sion to Pi-Latka would be extremely irre­spons­ible. They argue for some time, but even­tu­ally Kon­in is able to change his mind.

Zohir spends the next three weeks intro­du­cing his suc­cessor to the duties of his new role, while Azon­an in turn coaches his own replace­ment, Lieu­ten­ant A’Mathi. Then, about two weeks before Lex­ing­ton needs to depart on her res­cue mis­sion, a pro­mo­tion cere­mony is held in the ship’s for­ward lounge. Vice Admir­al Hebert, now back on duty although she is still get­ting used to her new leg, is invited, and there are form­al speeches, fol­lowed by the tra­di­tion­al celebrations.

The Green­land is cur­rently provid­ing sup­port for the colony on Pen­ul­tim­ate Chance, a good two days travel away. They are asked to take a cargo of rep­lic­at­ors and oth­er sup­plies, and take the oppor­tun­ity to use the trip as a shake­down cruise, to test the recal­ib­rated systems.

This turns out to be a wise move: as they drop out of warp near Pen­ul­tim­ate Chance, the ship exper­i­ences a moment of micro­grav­ity. This is par­tic­u­larly awk­ward for the com­modore, who has just hailed the Green­land: as he stands up to address Cap­tain Tav­ares, he sud­denly finds him­self drift­ing upwards, then land­ing hard as the grav­ity returns to nor­mal. Invest­ig­a­tion by the engin­eer­ing team shows that the warp coils are mis­aligned and inter­fer­ing with the ship’s struc­tur­al integ­rity field. This is res­ult­ing in a moment­ary can­cel­ling out of the arti­fi­cial grav­ity sys­tems as the ship crosses the warp 1 threshold, but is easy to fix.

Com­mand­er Zohir would prefer to leave the ship with min­im­al fuss, so only Kon­in and Azon­an are in the trans­port­er room to see him off. Lex­ing­ton lingers for a few hours as Tav­ares briefs his suc­cessor and the engin­eer­ing team realigns the warp coils, before head­ing back towards Star­base 364, car­ry­ing her new passenger.

The trip back exposes a couple more sys­tems issues, with rep­lic­at­ors adding excess­ive spices to food on decks 8, 9 and 10, and a rise in atmo­spher­ic CO₂ levels on deck 13. Azon­an and A’Mathi have the engin­eers work­ing double shifts until everything is once again work­ing properly.

The ‘B’ Plot: Lex­ing­ton finally departs for the Shack­leton Expanse, head­ing for Setu. The first few days of the voy­age are unevent­ful, as they cross through the neb­u­lae mark­ing the bound­ary and fol­low the well-mapped spacelanes towards the Akaru home­world. A week later, they approach the bound­ar­ies of Akaru space, but the expec­ted wel­come ves­sel is nowhere to be seen.

Con­cerned, Kon­in imme­di­ately con­tacts, and is put through to, Akaru fleet com­mand, where Akaru’Bak Chiel expresses con­cern. She tells him that the Vin­Shari have launched mul­tiple attacks over the last few months, and that her frig­ate may be lost. She will send more ves­sels to search the area, but asks that they use their advanced sensor sys­tems to try and loc­ate the miss­ing ship.

They are soon able to loc­ate the wreck of an Akaru frig­ate in a nearby star sys­tem, and imme­di­ately get under­way to invest­ig­ate it. As they close, sensors indic­ate no signs of life or energy, and then visu­als show large rents in the hull. Azon­an notes that the dam­age would def­in­itely indic­ate a Vin­Shari attack, and the warp core appears to be miss­ing. Corpses can also be seen float­ing in space.

The ‘C’ Plot: As the depar­ture date approaches, the crew spends time com­plet­ing plan­ning and main­ten­ance ahead of the jour­ney. Raynor has the new crew mem­bers famil­i­ar­ising them­selves with the ship’s lay­out, and run­ning repeated emer­gency and com­bat drills. Azon­an, Selvek and A’Mathi con­tin­ue to work on improv­ing the ship’s sys­tems. Quin­n’s nav­ig­a­tion pro­ject, how­ever, reaches a road­b­lock: he does not have enough data to be able to work out a route through the Endur­ance Divide.

The Arc: With Zohir safely reas­signed, Lex­ing­ton begins her jour­ney across the Expanse.

Obser­va­tions: Vice Admir­al Hebert lost a leg dur­ing the Vin­Shari assault. She has been provided with a replace­ment built by a genet­ron­ic rep­lic­at­or, but is still adjust­ing to it and uses a stick.

A’Mathi, Azon­an’s replace­ment as chief engin­eer on Lex­ing­ton, has had his own pro­mo­tion. He is now a Lieutenant.

Pen­ul­tim­ate Chance is a Fed­er­a­tion min­ing colony loc­ated on a class H world near the Romu­lan Neut­ral Zone. The col­on­ists have been hit hard by short­ages due to the war, and cur­rently require extern­al sup­port to survive.

The Endur­ance Divide is a wall of neb­u­lae sep­ar­at­ing the Wash­board form the rest of the Expanse. Reports indic­ate that it is riddled with unpre­dict­able anom­alies and sub­space dis­turb­ances, mak­ing nav­ig­a­tion across it almost impossible.

Ref­er­ences: The U.S.S. Green­land is a Nor­way-class star­ship, designed primar­ily for emer­gency response missions.

Ques­tions: Was it the Vin­Shari who attacked the Akaru frigate?