Date of Play : March 5th 2022
TBR Session #037
Lieutenant Commander Carl Hedley Executive Officer
Lieutenant Elli-Navine Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis Chief Medical Officer
Been on planet robit for a few weeks, when sensors pick up a subspace rift 6.27 lightyears away. Invisible, or something, seems to be moving away at a few hundred km/s. Not too fast, but a little unusual. Seems to be doing unusually strong gravitational things, too. Looks like the rifts caused by subspace weaponry, maybe? Would be attracted to a source of sufficient energy. Should be safe for the ship if we keep the warp core a million or so km away, though.
Doesn’t take long to get there, easy enough to keep pace. Looks like another tear in space, so it seems like the right specialists were around! Stars within the tear seem to match up with stars outside it, though. Parallel universe, maybe? Looks like those rat bastards that started shooting!
There seems to be another ship on the other side fleeing from the subspace thingy. Calls itself the USS Valiant. It seems to be scanning, too. It doesn’t like being scanned, and sends a feedback pulse back to cause a nuisance. Fortunately, the crew is on the case, and manage to do a quick reset to dodge the feedback. The Valiant used the opportunity to fly through, and now it’s coming right at the Potemkin!
Carl tries to talk, but all they say is ‘You can’t be allowed to keep doing this to us’ or something along those lines. Then they start shooting with those weird phaser cannon things. Very rude. Fortunately, Carl is able to talk them down, at least a little bit, and they stop shooting after the first salvo after his onslaught of reasonableness.
A meeting via holodeck is arranged, on a very neutral beach (which definitely doesn’t have a tallship floating in the background). The doctor arranges some doritos, and two people in command uniforms appear. The Captain appears to be Basin, and the XO is Olixia. So that’s a bit of a trip.
He seems to think his reality is being invaded. The Potemkin obviously didn’t do it, which Carl points out. So they show an unfamiliar ship design which has apparently done it. Definitely looks Starfleet. Elli remembers being asked to participate in a study for an engine that makes a very precise warpfield with no effect on spacetime, which sort of looks a bit like it, maybe? Should be hard to detect, fast, sneaky, all sorts of fun things.
Some conversation happens, Carl convinces Basin-B to head back through the rift, call for a diplomatic complaint which he can send on to Starfleet rather than just attacking. They head off, then, all of a sudden, red alert! Who’d’ve thunk it?
Looks like the Valiant is being attacked by another ship! Can’t let Basin-B and his friends die, especially not after so much successful negotiation, so it looks like the Potemkin has to go in. Unfortunately, the rift thingy is going to cause a significant power loss, so Carl’s amazing idea of launching a surprise spread of torpedoes through isn’t going to work. Sad, but so it goes. Elli can at least compensate for the power drain.
In the Potemkin goes, and it turns out that the mystery ship is our interdimensional invader. Turns out it really isn’t up to withstanding the Potemkin’s shields, and it backs off, so the Starfleet Intelligence Admiral in command can call up and warmonger at the Potemkin’s crew. He’s entirely unreasonable and seems to really want to fight a war against the other Federation, which Carl is absolutely not on board for. After a bit of conversation, the Admiral, defeated in rhetoric, hangs up and cloaks. Clearly a sore loser.
Before the stealth ship can destroy the disabled Valiant, the Potemkin evacuates its crew to relative safety, starts tending to the injured, and so on. The sneaky ship then attacks the Potemkin, but mistimes it, so the shields come up first and take the hit. Then, return fire time!
Basin takes their shields down with phasers again, then Carl hits their engines with the torpedoes. Then Elli beams their admiral onto the Potemkin’s bridge. So, uh… Fight over?
Apparently not, as the admiral tells them to keep fighting. Their phasers hit the shields, but Potemkin returns fire. Firefight ensues, and the Potemkin smashes the enemy’s engines to pieces, leaving them irreparable. Then simply wanders out of range to wait for reinforcements.
Soon enough, the J.J.verse ships warp in, and the Manticore arrives too. It moves forwards to deal with the idiots, who for some ridiculous reason decide to shoot at it. Then it phaser lances their computers and turns everything off. Neat!
Then a whole team beams over to J.J.-Potemkin and tries to get diplomatic relations going, if possible. They seem more militaristic, but ‘Vulcan Science Command’ handles the stuff the federation does in our universe.