Epis­ode Num­ber: 5×02

Writ­ten by: The authors of the Shack­leton Expanse Cam­paign Guide

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 23^rd Novem­ber 2024

Guest Stars:

• Mang Kleq: Klin­gon prisoner.

We are in orbit around a Vin­Shari pris­on world called “Scorch”, as we pre­pare to launch a cov­ert oper­a­tion to res­cue a trio of stran­ded Star­fleet officers. The con­di­tions seem inhos­pit­able, and we have little idea what kind of soci­ety can exist in this arid wilderness.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 51085.2

Plot: The res­cue party lands on the Vin­Shari pris­on plan­et, dis­cov­er­ing a world of oppres­sion and conflict.

The ‘A’ Plot: Scan­ning from orbit, Zepht loc­ates a com­badge sig­nal amidst a cluster of tents and lean-tos on the edge of the Vin­Shari dropzone. In pre­par­a­tion for their mis­sion, the team assembles weapons, desert sur­viv­al gear, breath­ing masks and goggles. A couple of them also opt to wear pro­tect­ive vests.

Kon­in and Raynor beam down first, arriv­ing in the middle of a rocky out­crop about half a kilo­met­er from the camp. While Raynor climbs to the top of the rocks for a visu­al sur­vey, Kon­in explores the imme­di­ate area, look­ing for poten­tial trouble. The air is thin and hot, and the dust hanging in it irrit­ates unpro­tec­ted eyes and obscures any­thing more than twenty metres away.

Azon­an and Zepht soon join them, fol­lowed quickly by Quinn and Con­ners. The doc­tor uses her tri­cord­er to scan for bio­lo­gic­al signs, identi­fy­ing a group of three Klin­gons and a Vin­Shari about a hun­dred metres away. There is no sign of mod­ern weaponry, either energy or pro­jectile, and they appear to be foraging.

Kon­in decides they shoud invest­ig­ate this group first, as they may be able to provide use­ful intel­li­gence about the loc­al situ­ation. Raynor leads the group away from the rocks, fol­lowed by the cap­tain. As he gets closer, the secur­ity chief notices that the Vin­Shari is armed, although his weapon was not detec­ted by the tri­cord­er. He kneels and aims his phaser rifle, intend­ing to provide cov­er as the cap­tain approaches them, but the ground sud­denly drops out from beneath him. He and Kon­in suc­cess­fully leap for safety as a sink­hole opens up in the sand.

This alerts the Vin­Shari, who pauses to emit a pier­cing howl before fir­ing at them. Raynor returns fire imme­di­ately, stun­ning him. Examin­ing the weapon he was car­ry­ing, the secur­ity chief notes that it appears to be a prim­it­ive ver­sion of the same organ­ic weapons used by the Vin­Shari mil­it­ary. Kon­in, mean­while, has approached the Klin­gons, who seem to be wear­ing met­al col­lars sim­il­ar to the explos­ive devices used by the Ori­on Syn­dic­ate over­seer E’lor­uul to ensure the loy­alty of her crew. He tells the Klin­gons they are free, but his next words are inter­rup­ted by the high-pitched buzz of intern­al com­bus­tion engines.

Zepht announces that there are vehicles com­ing their way, pre­sum­ably in response to the Vin­Shar­i’s howl. They quickly lead the Klin­gons back to the out­crop, which is a much more defens­ible pos­i­tion, but one runs off in a dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tion. Moments later, they hear a sharp report, and his life signs dis­ap­pear from Con­ner­s’s tri­cord­er display.

The Star­fleet per­son­nel take defens­ive pos­i­tions amongst the rocks as four roughly-assembled offroad vehicles race towards them, each car­ry­ing a driver, a pas­sen­ger with a Vin­Shari rifle and a second pas­sen­ger stand­ing behind a moun­ted dis­ruptor rifle. A bar­rage of dis­ruptor fire passes over the defend­ers’ heads before the vehicles split into two groups and begin circ­ling the outcrop.

Raynor fires first, care­fully aim­ing an area blast at the lead vehicle, stun­ning all three occu­pants. The vehicle slews side­ways and rolls, fling­ing its pas­sen­gers in all dir­ec­tions. Zepht adjusts his phaser rifle to dis­rupt the igni­tion mech­an­ism on the second buggy, slow­ing it sig­ni­fic­antly. Its gun­ner takes a shot at Raynor, miss­ing, but the human returns fire, knock­ing him off the back of the vehicle.

On the oth­er side of the rocks, Kon­in dir­ects Quinn to shoot the driver of anoth­er vehicle; the buggy jerks side­ways as he col­lapses, slam­ming into a sol­id boulder. Azon­an, mean­while, is stand­ing atop the rocks, aim­ing care­fully at the fuel tank of the fourth vehicle. The tank explodes spec­tac­u­larly, des­troy­ing the buggy and its pas­sen­gers, and fling­ing shrapnel back at the Andori­an, also catch­ing the Klingons.

The only sur­viv­ing driver decides dis­cre­tion is the bet­ter part of valour and leaves.

As Con­ners patches up the Klin­gons, Azon­an attempts to remove the col­lars safely. He is suc­cess­ful, but has to throw one to one side before it det­on­ates in his hand. Kon­in quizes the Klin­gons for details about the loc­al polit­ic­al situ­ation, learn­ing about the pris­on­er fac­tions, and the res­ult­ing status of new­comers. He tells them that, as they are allies, he is draft­ing them to work with the group. They ini­tially refuse, since as far as they know the Empire and the Fed­er­a­tion are at war, but Kon­in is able to con­vince them that the con­flict is over. Unfor­tu­nately, he impugns their hon­our in the pro­cess, which leads to one of them attack­ing him. Raynor is able to restrain him before any dam­age is done.

Azon­an, Quinn and Zepht exam­ine the wreck­age, learn­ing that the dis­ruptors were loc­ally made, from drop pod com­pon­ents, but the engin­eer feels the work­man­ship is famil­i­ar. They are not able to identi­fy this as the work of the usu­al sus­pects, such as Ori­ons, Fer­engi, Klin­gons or Romu­lans. The vehicles are sim­il­arly cobbled togeth­er from dis­carded parts. About half of their pas­sen­gers appear to be Vin­Shari, with the rest being a mix of off­worlders, includ­ing Ori­ons, Naus­ic­ans, Fer­engi and Romu­lans. There are three sur­viv­ors from the brief fire­fight, two Vin­Shari and an Ori­on; all are unconscious.

The cap­tain has dis­covered that the miss­ing Star­fleet officers may be held in a secured build­ing in the nearby camp, so this will be their next destination.

Obser­va­tions: Lieu­ten­ant Com­mand­er Quinn has finally hit some­thing in a firefight!

Pris­on­ers on Scorch have organ­ised them­selves into armed fac­tions, each led by its strongest mem­ber. About half of the cur­rent pop­u­la­tion is Vin­Shari, with ali­ens of many spe­cies mak­ing up the remainder. New­comers and their drop pods are often the centre of a battle between sev­er­al fac­tions, and the new pris­on­ers can spend up to a year wear­ing an explos­ive col­lar until they prove their worth and loy­alty. They work as “sifters”, look­ing for use­ful mater­i­als from the drop pods.

The nearby camp is led by a huge Vin­Shari who calls him­self Gravel. His lieu­ten­ant, with the sim­il­arly odd name of Tem­pest, is a female Vin­Shari with no neck spines, who has a repu­ta­tion as a fear­some fighter.

Ref­er­ences: The land­ing party wear desert fatigues sim­il­ar to those seen in Star Trek: Nemes­is and Star Trek: Deep Space 9. The armoured vests are sim­il­ar to those seen in Star Trek: Dis­cov­ery.