Saturday 29 May 2021 – 1800hrs ~ 2100hrs GMT

Commander Kenneth Mikhael Executive Officer
Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride Flight Controller
Lieutenant Elli-Navine Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Scott McIntyre Chief Tactical/Security Officer
Ensign Lanet Joss Science Officer

Podcast: To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin

(this report 1178 words)
TBR#010 =85.25 mins ~5,115 wds

The Potemkin was in orbit of an M-Class moon, which in turn orbits a Hot Hyper Gas Giant. Habitable moons were by no means a new feature of the universe but rare enough that it was worth a stopover. Three hours after they entered orbit and the sensors picked up a point of interest, a crashed ship, sensors put it at 50 years since the ship had crashed. Here was some radiation leaking from the ships engine cores but nothing they could not deal with.

The other side of the door leads the away team on a merry tour of the ship’s habitation areas, smallish rooms featuring a desk and bunkbeds lined the corridors. What appeared to be a kitchen and storage space and a large mess hall. Lining the leading wall were the remains of dozens of individuals, each displaying wounds consistent with a high-speed crash. It was decided hat they would work their way up to the vessels bridge first, they climbed up through four decks before reaching a massive room, located below the bridge, and showed signs that wheeled vehicles had once been parked here, all that remained are the parking lines and some tire marks. Elli busied herself with cutting through the deck hatch leading up to the bridge while the others considered this as a possible base of operations. Wondering if the equally massive doors could be closed.

They reached the Bridge, a good-sized room; well larger than that of the Potemkin, which meant it was maybe the biggest room on the crashed ship. A large hull tear exposed the bridge to the environment, the tear was surrounded by carbon scoring, indicated high explosives rather than anti-matter used almost exclusively throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrant! But it was a familiar layout and they quickly set about trying to reactivate the console. They can gather some information, but not much. The ship doesn’t use a warp drive as such, but rather a space warp drive, now shields and weapons that relay upon kinetic energy to do damage; so no directed energy weapons that the away team are used to.

Then, as the communications with the captain abruptly stop a trio of sun bright flashes, followed by expanding fire balls mark the detonation of three atomic warheads. A second later and these fireballs are disrupted by a larger, much brighter, and faster explosion, only possible from the destruction of the of a warpcore. Could the worst have happened? Could the Potemkin have been destroyed before their eyes?

Before they could process this information, two sleek fast fighters screamed down through the atmosphere, trailing burning plasma. They pulled up just meters from the ground and fired a cluster of missiles at the away teams Hopper before igniting impulse engines and passing their missiles and pitching 90 degrees up and disappeared out of view. The Impact of the missions blow a hole in the cockpit and scattered the modules about like discarded Lego blocks. The drive nacelles and anti-grav engines were destroyed. Only the Science module had survived, but much of the sensitive equipment within was damaged or destroyed.

The Away team quickly made their way back to the hoppers remains to salvage what remains, while Elli and Lanet headed to the crashed ships computer core. Both teams had some success, Elli was able to back track the ships course to another star system and recovered the last few moments before the crash. They ship had been attacked by a Romulan ship, a class of vessel that has not been used since the Earth-Romulan war hundreds of years before. Its weapon signature matched that of the directed energy fire of the ship that had attacked, maybe destroyed, the Potemkin.

Returning to the ship both teams made their way to the engine room, it was a cavern like room with three 30-meter domes across the back of the room. Elli scanned each and discovered that each one was a nuclear reactor with enough power output to power a lower warp capable ship. The left one was offline, the control rods at their lowest and fused in place, it would never start again. The middle one was producing power, a tiny amount but could be brought online with ease. However, the right one was currently in a state of overload. Approaching meltdown, it was the source of the radiation, if the control rods were not lowered into place, they would all die… at some point as there was no way to tell how long until the reactor melted down.

The remote controls for the rods were damaged and it would mean going down to the lower, radiation filled level and lower the rods directly. Pride informed the away team that he would be going down, along with the Drone they had brought with him, the system needed two leavers to be pulled at the same time.

His return was marked by the reactor shutting down, but it came at a cost. He was badly sunburned, and his lungs have been radiation burned. He would survive if they could get him to a sickbay soon.