Excursions

"Excursions" USS Pacifica NCC-72545
Mission No.	PAC-13
Total Posts	24
Start Date	Monday, May 3rd, 2004
Finish Date	Tuesday, May 25th, 2004
Story	James Harris
Guest Star(s)

Previous Mission "Shattering Diplomacy"

Year 2380

Next Mission "Operation Typhon"

Introduction

An away teams explors an uncharted M class world while the Pacifica heads for the Typhon System.

Summary

Whilst the Pacifica made her way from the Archerian System to the Typhon System to help with the colonising efforts Lieutenant James Harris detected some unusual readings emanating from the Aroshi System. Realising that he could not delay the delivery of supplies to the Typhon System by another day Commodore Daniel Butterworth decided against tracking down the origin of the signal, but allowed Lieutenant James Harris, [[L’Verrem|Lieutenant Junior Grade L’Verrem and Ensign Owen Banks to take the USS Columbia and trace the signal. Concerned for the away team’s safety whilst they were away from the ship Lieutenant Junior Grade Marcus Cesarian monitored their progress from engineering whilst he also prepared for the arrival at Typhon. Before the Pacifica moved out of communications range with the runabout Ceasarian released a subspace probe to allow any communications to cover the vast distance between them.

During their journey towards the Aroshi System the three officers tried to find out as much as they could, however it seemed few ships every traversed that area of space and their scanners revealed very little. It wasn’t until they entered the system that they discovered the origin of the signal was Aroshi III, unfortunately scanning from orbit proved useless as something was throwing off the scanners and making it appear as if the signal was coming from every point on the planet’s surface at once. Deciding that the search would have to continue on foot L’Verrem selected a suitable beam down point that put them between the desert and the jungle, both hard territories but both potential locations of the signal. The team were cautious upon arrival as they had already agreed that this system was the perfect place to hide, it had no tactical or commercial use and was totally uninhabited. With the Columbia remaining in orbit in case the team needed an emergency beam out the three officers headed down to the surface of Aroshi III. Since they had no more luck pinpointing the source of the signal when they arrived it was decided to use the three officer’s tricorders along with the Columbia’s sensors from orbit in order to detect the direction of the signal by each walking almost out of eye contact with each other and then initiating their scans. It was possible to deduce the most positive direction to move in based upon the strength of the signal.

Once their scans were complete Harris, L’Verrem and Owen Banks set off into the jungle. After about ten to fifteen minutes of walking the signal suddenly cut out and Harris tried desperately to get it back. L’Verrem suggested backtracking their steps and they soon located the signal however they also discovered that there were many dampening field generators buried beneath the ground cutting off the signal from specific areas. They considered the possibility that somebody or something had wanted them to end up in that exact location and this suspicion was proven correct within seconds as they all ended up hanging from a tree in a large net trapped. From out of nowhere a stranger appeared fortunately they had not been forgotten Cesarian was still monitoring their progress from the Pacifica and had realised that they were late with their last report.

It appeared that the stranger was simply trying to sell the away team armaments and soon introduced himself as the representative of the Aroshi weapons development facility, before he introduced himself however he rendered the team’s weapons inoperable. He then went on to explain after several angry questions from the officers that the signal they had traced was sent out by the facility to lure customers to the planet. The dampening field that then rendered their tricorders useless earlier on was a demonstration of one of the facilities products which the team soon discovered was vast indeed. The cheerful salesman explained that they had not long ago supplied a race of people with large shipments of their finest weapons that race was the Vorta shocked by this revelation the team were lost for words and unknown to them the communications from Cesarian to the runabout were being intentionally blocked the whole time cutting them off from the others onboard the Pacifica. It seemed the salesman would not let them leave without making a sale the salesman was eager to demonstrate the facility’s newest creation orbital gravitic mines, much like those released by Klingon Birds of Prey. However in doing so the runabout would be destroyed and so Harris quickly thought of a better idea. He requested to see a demonstration of a larger weapon something capable of large geographical destruction. He intended to destroy the facility itself with their own weapons although L’Verrem did not understand the plan Banks went along with it and helped persuade the not too smart salesman to allow them to return to the runabout to view the capabilities of the weapon from orbit. Harris had deduced that the weapon would be tested upon the planet itself a loophole within the automated salesman’s programming it seemed determined to wipe out the facility and blinded by his desire to get back at them for helping the Dominion Harris didn’t stop to think about the possibility that the facility was manned. l’Verrem and Banks then discussed the whole situation through from the beginning calming Lieutenant Harris and highlighting the various options they had. It seemed that none of them were in the position to make the call, they couldn’t justify what they had planned.

The three officers were interrupted by a coded transmission from the Pacifica Cesarian had managed to break though the jamming signal and contact the Columbia but the signal was not stable. Realising that they needed Commodore Butterworth’s go-ahead Harris summoned the salesman and requested they be allowed to contact their ship to discuss the purchase of the weapon with their Commanding Officer. Since the ship was disabled due to the planets lockdown satellites the salesman agreed, but he also insisted that he monitor their conversation. By keeping the conversation ‘above board’ Butterworth and Harris discussed the situation without letting the salesman realise what was actually being discussed. Butterworth suggested that Harris ensure that no lives were lost and used a false Starfleet regulation to cover this up, he really wanted Harris to get the salesman to tell to them whether or not the facility was manned. With a little persuasion Harris got the salesman to reveal that the facility was empty as the whole place was automated, so with the salesman allowing them to target the weapon for demonstration the team targeted the heart of the facility and fired wiping out the entire area and destroying every last trace of the Aroshi Weapons Facility.

With the orbital defences now offline the away team were free to leave. During the journey back to the Pacifica [[James Harris|Harris wrote his report, he suggested that Starfleet issue a general warning about the sector and suggested that the Commodore contacted the Federation and requested that the system be inspected for dismantling and the possibility that other systems like this may exist.

Other Characters

None.

Noted Ship & Starbase Appearances

• USS Wilson NCC-47332
• USS Columbia NCC-79399

Out of Character Information

None.