Thursday, February 28, 2013

Voyage #3: The Algernon Project

1. A Day of Infamy: The PCs arrive to find the Affilitation of Outer Free Worlds (See The Triangle, hereafter called AOFW) in shambles. Their entire defense fleet has been destroyed by an IKS sneak attack. The AOFW actually had a large advanced fleet so no one is sure how the older IKS ships managed such a complete victory.

However, with the arrival of the Larson, they are about to find out. The Larson receives a burst transmission from a cloaked ship and instantly goes dark. No weapons, no shields, nothing.

Standish has no chance of stopping the computer virus, but Commander Decker does. If Decker fails however, the Larson will have to use some very unorthodox tactics. First, they will discover, oddly, that not everything is offline. The shuttlebay was apparently low priority enough to remain unaffected.

Between their stores of anti-matter and the ship’s breaching pods, the PCs should still be able to take out the enemy ship once it decloaks, if they can just get the sensors back online, which they can do with a second Computer Ops check by Decker.

If the Larson does fend off the virus, they will engage in standard combat against the enemy vessel and discover Standish’s sensor wizardry.

Finally, should all else fail, have Romulan Commander Honorius show up to save the day.

2. Investigation: Once the PCs win the fight they will no doubt want to investigate. What they find among the bodies are genetically modified Klingons who have extremely high intelligence. They were modified in a similar version to Khan and others from the Eugenics Wars. It seems someone has used the process to enhance only intelligence.

3. Sole Survivor: The PCs receive a hail from the head of the AOFW. He asks them to track down the source of the enhanced intelligence Klingons, and also to protect them until some of their ships can be repaired.

3a Disavowed: The head of the IKS makes a formal announcement that the attack on the AOFW was not sanctioned. He invites anyone harmed in the attack to end these miscreants any way they wish.

3b Tense Negotiations: Everett Jay Baker requests a meeting with Decker and asks for the Bird of Prey to help defend the AOFW. He vehemently wants the ship, cloaking device intact, to defend the AOFW.

He agrees to turn the ship over to Starfleet Intelligence after the New New Aberdeen shipyards have had a chance to repair some of the ships rendered inoperable in the IKS attack and once the PCs have put a stop to the renegades once and for all.

He also makes a personal offer to Decker: 30 highly trained marines to supplement his ship’s boarding parties, bringing it up to the 50 it had during the Four Years’ War.

4. Tracking Algernon: The PCs can do sensor sweeps and pick up a clue- they detect residual warp signatures far away from the established space lanes. A large number of ships have been passing through a large asteroid field, which they are using to break up their warp signatures and mask their trail.

5. Capture: CPO Bergmann recommends the Larson intercept and board one of the Orion vessels to interrogate the crew. The PCs can engage an Orion ship in ship to ship combat and take out its engines, then transport boarding parties over.

The Orions will try and delay the boarders while they set the self-destruct on the ship. Once set, the PCs will have to grab some prisoners and get off the ship, using transporters or shuttles.

Note: While the PCs are sitting in deep space waiting to intercept the Orion, the commander of their Vulcan operatives will request his ships depart, being close enough to the Romulan border.

6. Interrogate: The Orions are resistant to all standard interrogation methods but mind-melds work. They find that the Orions were making clandestine deliveries to a  small science station, owned by a reclusive genius. They do not know the scientist’s name, only that they deal with a Klingon named K’gara- an extremely large and vicious mercenary.

The Orions know he has a ship that he can call in to deal with troublemakers. He used it one of their clanmembers, but his ship was destroyed in the encounter, so the Orions don’t know what type of ship it is.

In fact K’Gara has a D-14A destroyer, sometimes commanded by him personally (especially during key battles) but other times lying in wait among some nearby moons, waiting for an interloper to wander by attacking their client.

Once the D-14A is dealt with, PCs will have to board the station, including facing down K’Gara and his Klingon mercenaries.

Then they will finally meet the scientist behind it all: Roger Corby. He now works as a scientist for hire and was approached by a band of renegade Klingons. The PCs will find a personal data recorder on Corby, containing a personal log of sorts. See the player handout below for information on interesting posts this log contains.




Player Handout: Corby’s Logs

Personal Log: I believe I have a lead on the location of an amazing technological terror called “The Tantalus Device”. Word is that it’s somewhere in The Triangle in an alien laboratory. Technology like that is so fascinating.

Personal Log: Approached by the Romulans for an exotic energy bottle. The specifications for the energy this device had to maintain are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The credits were nice to say the least, and constructing the bottle was interesting.

The Romulan said his name was Honorius. He was quite a roguish character, quite unlike the typical Romulan. Had a pair of Green Orion dancing girls, “one for each arm” he said. I think they might have been twins. He said he served the greatest Praetor in Romulan history. Also, he had a Gorn bodyguard of all things.

Personal Log: I have a friend in Starfleet Research who keeps tabs on Christine for me, in return for the occasional interesting bit of alien technology. He told me Christine had accepted a post on “the oldest, worst ship in Starfleet” that has apparently been assigned to the Triangle. Could she have found out I’m here somehow?

Poor girl. She was so disappointed in me. So foolishly naive. There should be no limits on scientific research, especially when it comes to investigating the technology of long-dead alien worlds! 

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