S01 E05: USS Intrigue: Cat’s Meow

 

S01 E05: USS Intrigue: Cat’s Meow

(This adventure was inspired by the Spacewrecks Mission Brief entitled “Cat’s Meow”.)

First Officer’s Log. Stardate 45134.7. Commander Nyri Elatrai of the USS Intrigue reporting. In a show of good will to New Monaco, a new colony that was recently given an official charter to be a member of the Federation, Starfleet has ordered the USS Intrigue to lead the flotilla preceding the 2376 Kessel Grand Prix. As guests of honor, our senior staff is hosting a gala dinner following the parade. I have heard racers from both Alpha and Beta quadrants are attending – Klingon, Orion, Caitian, and more. Time to break out the dress uniform. A note to the crew… no partaking of the Saurian brandy. I hear these racers are a rowdy bunch. And a note to myself, talk to the pilot of Cat’s Meow. That’s the sleekest yacht I have ever seen.

               The Nebula class USS Intrigue, both parts of it, floated past the stationary observatory ships. Its saucer section was in front, commanded by Commander Nyri Elatrai. Its auxiliary section was close behind, commanded by Captain Sekoba. Floating on top of the saucer section, held in place by a tractor beam, was R’Temm, last year’s winner of the Kessel Grand Prix. R’Temm’s furry white face could be seen through the transparent helmet of his EV suit. He held up his paws in the human tradition of “waving” to the onlookers. He EV suit was specially made for his Caitian features. Observers could see him gleefully wagging his tail behind him.

            Captain Sekoba had let her first officer lead the parade because Commander Elatrai was a pilot herself and had always wanted to race in the Grand Prix, but never got the chance.

            The other ships in the starship parade cruised behind at one-half impulse. But not for long. A racing yacht with a pointed front end and a circular nacelle in back floated above both parts of the Intrigue and scooted out in front. Elatrai tried to hail the ship and ask it to move back into formation. Instead of doing as she asked, it sped up and moved even further ahead. Then another racing yacht came up alongside the Intrigue’s saucer section. The “nose” of the yacht did a little up and down motion, then it moved ahead to catch up with the other ship. Elatrai knew these racers would be eager to show off. That’s what this parade, and the Kessel Grand Prix, were all about. Maybe that’s why she never raced with them. She didn’t have their flamboyance or desire for showmanship.

 

            Commander Elatrai went to the ship’s galley. Now that the Intrigue was back in one piece, she had to make sure the ship’s cooks were on schedule with the preparations. The Intrigue had a deluxe galley, the finest in the fleet, and they would be hosting the gala dinner tonight. There would be dignitaries from all over the Alpha and Beta quadrants. The head chef was busy, but still pretty jolly. He greeted the commander with a smile. He told her everything would be ready on time.

            The commander went to her office to contact her chief of staff. She needed to see how the ambassadors in the ship’s diplomatic suites were doing. Did the Klingon ambassador receive his extra case of bloodwine? Did the Bajoran ambassador get the two extra fluffy pillows she asked for? Did the Aurelian ambassador get moved to a room facing “galactic west” like he asked for? Taking care of dignitaries was a large part of Elatrai’s duties on the Intrigue. The ship had those diplomatic suites so they could take on VIPs and give them the lavish treatment they were accustomed to. And the ship’s civilian staff, a large part of the ship’s crew, was under her command. To her relief—but not to her surprise--the Guest Relations manager, a Benzite named Selva, told her everything had been taken care of.

 

            The Intrigue’s dining room held two hundred humanoids, max. And it was full tonight. Most of the people were guests to the ship, while the ship’s crew were at their posts or on shore leave on New Monaco. The ship’s senior staff, of course, were all present and accounted for. They were all in their white-top dress uniforms. Commander Elatrai thought the white-dress was pretty spiffy-looking, while Lt. Hughes thought they made everyone look like old earth bellhops.

            Once everyone has been seated and started eating, Elatrai could hear a lot of people speaking very loudly. Her Betazoid telepathy picked up quite well the arrogance of the racing captains. (The racers all called themselves “captain”.) They were all so eager to brag about their ships, how many races they had won, how many metals they had hung on their walls, and how they were going to win this race. She used her trained mental powers to shroud out all the minds. They became background noise to her.

            “My ship is the fastest in the galaxy!” verbally boasted Captain Valak Varn of the yacht he proudly called “Cat’s Meow”. According to Elatrai’s research, this was Varn’s first Kessel Grand Prix. His ship was certainly the sleekest looking of all of them.

            “It takes more than a pretty paint job to win a race,”  said Sh’Resh, an Andorian who was now entering the race for the third time and had never won.

            “How would YOU know? You’ve never won!” said R’Temm as he took another slug of his Saurian brandy. Varn just kept boasting about how great and fast his ship was. He raised his first and second arms in the air, a gesture of success for his people. With his other two arms, he raised two shot glasses and brought them to his one mouth, pouring the liquid of both glasses into his mouth at the same time. As he set the glasses down, a tap on the top of his bald head made him look to his right. He saw a female. A beautiful one, with long dark hair. “Well, hello there,” he said.

            “I’m Commander Elatrai,” the beautiful female said. “I would love to have a look at your ship when you have the time.” Everyone else at the table guffawed and made vulgar gestures.

            “Well, sure pretty lady. How about after dinner?”

            “Can we go for a ride in it too?” this came from someone else. Varn saw a shorter male step up beside Elatrai. “This is Cadet Camsol,” said Elatrai. “Thank you so much! We look forward to it. We’ll come back to your table after dinner.”

            And with that, Elatrai and Camsol went back to their table. Cadet Camsol was a promising pilot, so Elatrai had invited him to the gala as her special guest. They both had admired Captain Varn’s yacht.

            “She’ll never go with you, you know,” said the Orion across the table to Varn.

            “Whaddaya mean?” Varn said.

            “That lady Starfleet commander. I saw the way you looked at her. She’s a Betazoid. She knew what you were thinking. She’ll never be interested in you.”

            “Oh, we’ll see about that. Once she sees my ship—” The Orion looked around laughing. “He thinks he can get women with his ship. That hunk of space debris won’t even make it past the fifth marker.”

            Then a Bajoran pilot said to the Orion, “Well, the way your ship broke down during the Paraxis Race, you should really retire and go back to your pirate business.”

            “Hey, I was never a pirate. Just because—"

            Elatrai had just sat back down when she heard the insults flying from the table with all the pilots. Her Betazoid telepathy could feel the hostilities building. Not that one needed to be a telepath to know what was happening. She and the other Starfleet officers headed for the pilot’s table, just in time to see Captain Varn throw a punch at Mar-Ten, the Orion. Then other pilots started throwing punches. Not a second later, security came on the scene. They were able to pull everyone apart before there were any real injuries. Captain Sekoba ordered all the pilots to be taken back to their quarters. They would be confined there until the race. She would also have her medical staff go to the pilots’ quarters and treat any wounds.

            The only pilot who hadn’t been involved in the brawl was the Aurelian, Tokarr. Elatrai spotted him speaking with the Aurelian ambassador. Aurelians were an avian species. Elatrai thought it was amazing that a race with wings still had ships to “fly” through space. But then, she knew they were air breathers. Tokarr walked up to Elatrai and said, “Most unfortunate. Their behavior was most uncivilized.” Elatrai had also noticed Tokarr was the only one of the pilots who didn’t partake of the Saurian brandy.

            “Oh we were prepared for it,” she told him. “Don’t let it ruin your evening. And good luck in the race tomorrow.”

            “You are most kind,” he said. “I know your mother, Banissa. A most gracious lady.”

            “Ah. You’ve been to Betazed?”

            “I took medical supplies there during the Dominion War.”

            Elatrai’s face fell. Betazed had been conquered by the Jem’Hadar during the war. She wasn’t there at the time, because she was in Starfleet. But her planet was still recovering from it, and the wounds were still fresh.

            “I did not mean to depress you. You and your mother are of a strong ilk. You can survive anything.” She thanked him, and he walked back to his table.

 

            The Cat’s Meow had a long conical nose and cylindrical engines on either side. Her outer hull was white with streaks of red. Varn proudly stroked the nose. “Custom built,” he said. “I designed her myself. Designed for speed and endurance. She can haul ass for over twenty hours at a time.” Varn had chosen to park his ship in the New Monaco docking ground instead of the spacedock. The yacht was easier to maintain that way.

            “And the compact design helps for easier steering,” added Elatrai.

            “And still have room for a passenger or two,” Camsol happily said, stroking one of the side engines.”

            Varn opened the side entrance and lowered the ramp. They followed him inside. The inside bulkhead was a smooth silver, like watching the stars when you’re at warp speed.

            Camsol saw a small bunk bed. “So you live here?”

            “Naw,” Varn said. “That’s just for relaxin’. I only take this girl out of dock for races. Don’t wanna use ‘er up.”

            “So the controls provide feedback through tactile control surfaces. That’s so efficient,” Elatrai said.

            “And the warp nacelles are retractable,” Varn said. “She can even maintain propulsion in thick atmospheres and nebulas.”

            Elatrai noticed the accoutrements were sparse, but other things were ornate. The navigation console had aesthetic designs along the borders; the overhead bulkhead had a few flakes of latinum made into it that sparkled; the lever that opened the exterior ramp had an extra shiny doodad on the end. Elatrai was impressed. A ship built for speed and beauty. But she also thought something looked familiar about the ship. She asked Varn if he had ever met a Kzinti. He casually answered No, he had never met or even seen a Kzinti. Elatrai’s Betazoid telepathy told her he was lying. Interesting, she thought.

           

            The next day was race day. There were buoys to mark the course of the ten-parsec race course. With all the ships going at warp speed, there was no way the naked eye would be able to view them. There were ships along the sidelines all along the course that would take sensor scans and create visual displays of the whereabouts of each ship in the race and continually transmit to viewers on New Monaco and on ships that had gathered to watch. The pilots would have to maneuver through a nebula, an asteroid belt, and a few solar systems. The organizers of the race also tried to put the course in the way of traveling meteors, comets, and rogue planets when they could. Perhaps even ion storms.  Once, they even tried close proximity to a black hole, but accidents had made that choice a little too dangerous. They had also tried close proximity to a gas giant, but it was also deemed too dangerous, as some ships were too small to resist the gravitational pull. But of course, some danger was still allowed. It was part of the thrill. And everyone knew the risks going in.

            The regular alpha shift bridge crew of the USS Intrigue were watching on the main viewscreen. Commander Elatrai had also invited Cadet Camsol on the bridge to get the best view. The Cat’s Meow, Question Mark, and Fire of Zoron all reached the first marker at the same time. They were well ahead of the other twelve yachts. Then, the visual display—which they knew was a much slower version than what was really happening—showed the Cat’s Meow folding in its nacelles and shooting ahead of the other two yachts. She would be the first to enter the Ultan Nebula. The nebula was the one place there would be no sensor readings or visuals. The gas and radiation were just too thick. That also meant that the pilots would find it a very challenging area to navigate, with their own visuals and sensors rendered practically useless. They would have to rely on whatever internal ship’s navigation systems they had, plus the pilots’ own instincts.

            Five minutes after the Cat’s Meow entered the Ultan Nebula, the Question Mark entered. Then some of the other ships entered. After another five minutes, the Question Mark exited. Then other ships exited. But where was the Cat’s Meow? No one saw her exit the nebula. Elatrai remembered she had seen a pretty advanced navigation system on that ship. And even though Captain Varn was haughty beyond all measure, he was no dummy. If the other ships could find their way out of the nebula, he could too. So what happened to him?

 

            The race continued for another hour. Most of the yachts had made it through the Brioris asteroid belt. But the Cat’s Meow was still unaccounted for. The race authorities contacted the USS Intrigue and asked her to launch a search and rescue. Captain Sekoba was more than willing to help out. Commander Elatrai was also eager to find out what had happened. Most of the spectators on the Intrigue had to stop watching the race and resume their stations. But the captain still allowed live transmissions of the race to be viewed on some shipboard monitors.

            The captain ordered the ship to full impulse on a course to the Ultan Nebula. The Intrigue was a Nebula-class ship with an astrometrics and navigation pod. That was exactly the type of pod that was especially designed for navigating in places that were difficult to navigate. Thus, they had no problem knowing just where they were in the nebula and tracing course that the Cat’s Meow should have taken. With their advanced sensor suites, they were able to find the yacht pretty quickly. When they found the yacht, the did not detect any lifesigns aboard. The ops officer ran a level one diagnostic and said the nebula was not interfering with ship’s sensors. They did not detect any lifesigns on Varn’s ship or anywhere else in the nebula, except for their own ship.

They used their tractor beam to tow the yacht out of the nebula. Elatrai and chief engineer Bravo beamed aboard the yacht. They did not see any sign of Varn. Elatrai tried to get the data from the yacht’s log. The log had apparently been locked. She didn’t see that it had an encryption code, but somehow the log was under a computer lock. She tried a verbal command. “Computer, unlock ship’s log.” The computer did not respond. “I guess it didn’t hear you,” said Bravo. “Kzinti ships usually have an artificial intelligence built in so they take verbal commands,” Elatrai said.

“Kzinti ship? Actually, the design does look similar,” said Lt. Bravo.

Elatrai said, “It IS a Kzinti ship. When Varn took Camsol and I on a tour of the ship, I thought the design looked familiar. Then I looked it up in the Starfleet databanks. It’s definitely a Kzinti ship. Even though Varn claimed he designed the ship himself and that he never had seen a Kzinti.”

“How did he get this ship? The Kzinti just gave it to him?” asked Bravo.

“Maybe he stole it. Or maybe he found it abandoned,” Elatrai said. The Kzinti were an aggressive, warlike race. It wasn’t likely that they would have given or sold any of their ships to any other race. But they were good at making fast, efficient ships.

Lt. Bravo went to check the engines. Elatrai kept looking at the main computer console. She was trying to find a way to see the ship’s records.

 

Captain Sekoba questioned all the racers. None of them had seen the Cat’s Meow when they were in the nebula. The captain of the Question Mark said he saw the Cat’s Meow from behind when it entered the nebula. Varn had lowered the engine power and entered the nebula cautiously. That didn’t help Sekoba with her investigation. She knew that none of the racers were really fond of Varn. Or each other for that matter. But all of them had come out of the nebula except for Varn. And judging by the records, none of them spent any more time in the nebula than they needed to get through it. So no one had time in the nebula to dispose of Varn. The only logical conclusion would be that Varn was a victim of the nebula itself. Though there was no evidence. She had Lt. Orga of Stellar Cartography scan the nebula from a distance for any anomalous readings. She knew the nebula would still have energy readings left by all the ships that had just been through it. All ships left some kind of trail in the nebula. But maybe there was something else they could find from more thorough scans. She also had Orga scan specifically for the energy signature from the Cat’s Meow and to scan for a Droahnn, Varn’s species.

 

Commander Elatrai ran a compression algorithm on the ship’s logs. Then she added a Starfleet decryption matrix. Then she was finally able to open the file. There was a complete video of Varn taking the yacht into the nebula. She saw Varn sitting in the plushy pilot’s seat. His hands, all four of them, were lightly touching the controls. He seemed to be in deep concentration. He slowed the ship. It entered the nebula. Then something strange happened. Varn’s seatbelts suddenly became unattached. The ship’s hatched opened. Varn looked shocked and totally surprised as he was sucked into space, still trying to grab onto the pilot’s seat, then the hatchway. He did not make it. The hatch closed on its own, with Varn off the ship, somewhere in the nebula. Then she heard a scream. It wasn’t on the video log. It was coming from engineering. She ran to find Bravo in engineering.

Lt. Bravo was standing beside the propulsion core holding up her hands in front of her. They had been burned. Bravo said she had tried to reset the warp generator and she was hit by a massive magnetic shock. Then the commander began to think. The ship had a hatch that opened and closed by itself, and then a magnetic shock that came out of nowhere. She ordered the Intrigue to beam Bravo to sickbay so her burns could be treated. Then the commander went back to the command center. She interfaced her tricorder with the ship’s computer. She sent a subroutine from her tricorder to the ship’s computer to search for a positronic processor. The subroutine found it. The ship had an artificial intelligence program that was working as a background security virus. She created a computer buffer to quarantine the AI. Then she was able to open the AI processor, without it affecting the computer or the ship, and see what was its intent. It had a paragraph of Kzinti text in its memory buffer. She used her tricorder to translate the text. What she found was shocking. She immediately beamed back to the Intrigue to report to the captain.

A few minutes later, Elatrai was sitting in the captain’s Ready Room. “What did you find in the AI’s memory buffer?” asked Captain Sekoba. The Betazoid commander told her that the AI had seen Varn kill the original Kzinti captain of the ship and leave the body on an asteroid. Then Varn reassembled the AI, thinking it would reset the programming and erase its memory. He thought it had worked. The AI started taking orders from Varn. But it was only waiting for the chance to get revenge for the death of its previous owner. The nebula was the perfect chance. The death almost looked like an accident.

“Varn killed a Kzinti and stole his ship just so he could win a race?” Sekoba asked.

“After I found Varn’s personal logs,” said Elatrai, “I saw that he had been looking for the perfect ship. And that was it. He couldn’t afford to build his own. But he knew he was a good enough pilot to win.”

“And the Kzinti build their ships with very loyal computer systems,” Sekoba said.

“So it would seem. That was something Varn didn’t know about.”

Then Orga called the captain and reported that sensors had just found Varn’s body in the nebula. It had deteriorated from the radiation, but there was enough to bring it aboard and return it to his home planet. The captain ordered the body to be beamed aboard.

“If Varn HAD won the race,” said Elatrai, “he would have been disqualified if anyone found out he was racing an actual warship, and one that was stolen at that.” Sekoba agreed it would not have turned out well for Varn, though not as bad as what DID happen to him.

The captain said the ship would be returned to the Kzinti. Varn was not from a Federation world, and the Kzinti were not allied with the Federation--still, it was the right thing to do.

 

Commander Nyri Elatrai was in her cabin reading the tenth book in the Detective Rolina series. It was the best series of detective novels she had ever read. She heard her door chime. She put down her padd and went to the door. The door opened and Tokarr stood there.

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Not at all. Come in.”

The Aurelian entered. The commander asked what she could do for him. He handed her a tiny metal medallion in the shape of outspread wings. “A gift,” he said. “It is the symbol of my home state.”

“It’s beautiful!” she said.

“Your mother told me you collect objects with symbols from different races.”

“Yes. This is very gracious of you.” Besides reading the Rolina series, Nyri’s favorite hobby was collecting these token symbols. They were a reminder of diversity and how each race should be proud of its accomplishments.

“It is the least I can do for the daughter of the Fourth House, Keeper of the crown jewels of Reeliyox, Guardian of the Transcendent Fountain of Life.” Nyri smiled at that. She had always hated that honorific. But it was who she was.

“Your mother told me you always wanted to be a pilot. And that you were a natural. But also, that you take it so seriously. For many years you had refused to fly just for fun. Why is that?” She stared at the medal he had just given her. She set it on a table. That old childhood memory came back to her again. She told him the story.

When Nyri Elatrai was twelve years old, she and her best friend Sigala were at a park and they were asked if they wanted to drive a jandan car. It was a somewhat high-speed car that had been designed for adolescents. They were both excited, and their parents agreed to let them try it. Nyri took the blue, compact one. Sigala took the red subcompact because she was one year older and thought she should get the bigger one. They each got into their ground car and accelerated down the smooth path. They were driving side-by-side at first. Then like kids, they started going faster and faster, racing to see who would get to the end of the trail first.

There were a few curves, which were no problem for Nyri. She had already had some driving lessons and had been told she was a natural pilot. Sigala, however, took a curve too fast, went off the path and crashed into a stone statue. She was knocked unconscious and taken to a medical facility. She died a few hours later.

Nyri had always blamed herself for the death of her best friend. She was a trained driver. Sigala wasn’t. Why did she have to challenge her by goading her into driving faster than she should? Of course, after the incident, the Betazed authorities had set more stringent rules on the park’s driving course, but that didn’t bring Sigala back. Nyri promised herself to never forget her friend, and to always keep her piloting skills sharp, lest she ever have a deadly accident. She also promised herself never to try any dangerous “stunts”. They weren’t worth it. That’s why she could never bring herself to participate in the Kessel Grand Prix.

Tokarr’s wings sagged. It was a sign of his understanding and empathy for her. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said. He left her in her thoughts.

 

           

-by the Honorable Kavura

Thank you for reading my Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log mission report. Captain’s Log is a solo role-playing game by Modiphius Entertainment.