The Anointed
After an encounter with the converted Ferengi D'Kora Class Dracul and the Doenitz starship USS Exeter the USS Boudicca limped back to Starbase Geneva for some much needed repair work. With the ship badly damaged during the fight, the ship yard crews set to work bringing the mighty Keltoi Class starship back to full operational ability.
But the starship was not all that was damaged in the fighting. Marine Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Eva Straton, injured during the battle ,discovered her inability to control her own powerful telepathic abilities. After nearly killing Aleksander 'Sasha' Stolev when her ability to control her telepathy failed, Straton requested a shuttlecraft and some much needed leave time to allow her the opportunity to rebuild her mental defenses. But little did she know that her desire to be isolated for a short time in order to re-establish her mental balance, would plunge her into another realm.
The Kitty Hawk
With the Boudicca damaged and the Dracul still operating behind the lines against 52nd Fleet ships, the command staff of the Boudicca were temporarily assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk, A Miranda Class starship. Tasked with the initial assignment to seek out and engage the Dracul, with the intention of capturing or destroying that ship, the Kitty Hawk left Starbase Geneva after being equipped with a phased cloaking device.
The D'Kora Class Dracul would still be a significant match for the Kitty Hawk even with the use of the newly installed cloaking device. While the Kitty Hawk began her hunt, members of the Station's engineering yard began the repair and refit of the USS Boudicca.
The Planet
After three full days of travel, Eva Straton located a small reasonably isolated area in the Harvis System to reflect and meditate. The system consisted of a couple of small uninhabited planets and moons. However, it was also home to an Interdimensional Rift and Eva's timing couldn't have been worse.
Already feeling the effects of a hormonal and chemical imbalance caused by her pregnancy and exasperated by her recent lack of telepathic contact, Eva was already, unknowingly hallucinating.
To further compound this situation, the planet Iradon which is on a 1,000 year cycle of transgressing between two distinctly different universes, chose that exact moment to reappear into our universe.
The planet appeared directly in the path of Straton's shuttlecraft accompanied by strong bursts of gravimetric and quantum energies unlike any encountered in this universe before.
Unable to evade the sudden appearance of the planet, Eva's shuttle plunged into the atmosphere, but not before managing a distress call. The shuttle was affected by a strange quantum field which caused almost every system on the small ship to fail. As a result, only Eva's piloting skills managed to get the shuttle down without killing her. She was injured in the crash, however, and suffered a serious head injury which gave her amnesia.
The local inhabitants of the planet, Iradonians found the wreckage and recovered Eva. They treated her physical injuries, but could not help her amnesia.
Being a strong telepath, Eva began to pick up on the thoughts of the locals that had rescued her and began to believe herself to be the Anointed of Alazara. Still under the hallucinatory effects of the chemical imbalance, and having no past memories to draw upon, Eva assumed the role of the Anointed and began to gather to her an army of Iradonians to overthrown the local Duke as the leader of the planet. The army consisted of the loyal followers of the High Priestess Cereus who was the leader of the rebellion against the mysterious figure known only as the Duke. Under the guise of the Anointed, Eva began to use her telepathic powers against those that opposed her, even as she began to exhibit delusions of god-like proportions.
The Presence of Straton was foretold as a prophesy and so it was not a difficult leap of faith for the followers of Alazara to promote her as the Anointed. Since the male nobles, who were their enemies possessed limited telepathic powers, the appearance of a female telepath was a significant step in solidifying the power base of the Rebellion which was female leadership oriented.
Rescue
Meanwhile aboard the Kitty Hawk, Eva's distress signal was detected and the ship was ordered by Captain Caladryll Sevant to move to assist. Upon arriving at the system, it was quickly apparent that the planet was unusual, although the exact nature of the phenomenon was indeterminate. Attempts to locate the exact location of the crashed shuttlecraft were thwarted when sensors failed to operate well enough to isolate any sign of the Federation vessel's energy signature. because of this, it was decided to deploy a rescue team who would also deploy by shuttlecraft since the transporters could not be trusted. After some research by the science department it was determined what the locals looked like and that they were approximately equal technologically to Earth's Medieval era. The away team was equipped and cosmetically altered to allow themselves to fit in more readily with the local population.
An away team was assembled and consisted of the following personnel:
- Commander Susan Rivers
- Lieutenant Commander Aleksander 'Sasha' Stolev
- Lieutenant Matthew McLaren
- Ensign Skeel Moctatso
- Ensign John Linskens
- Major Leonal Drizzt
- Lieutenant Jennifer Caskie
- A squad of four Starfleet Marines
All that the team realized was that Straton was somewhere on the planet, but they were not aware of the situation that Eva was in. They had no way of knowing exactly where she was or if she was even still alive.
Prepared for their mission, they departed the Kitty Hawk aboard the Rameses trailing Eva's Shuttlecraft Fang.
A Second Crash
Almost Immediately upon entering the planet's magnetosphere problems began. Systems all over the Danube Class Runabout Rameses began to fail unexpectedly. They were not damaged, yet somehow they simply stopped functioning. this was later determined to be caused by interference caused by the Quantum Signature of Iradon. Matthew McLaren, who was piloting, managed to put the shuttle down smoothly enough to prevent any serious injuries, although the roughness of the landing was enough to cause additional damage to the shuttle craft. To make matters less appealing, it was discovered that all of their personal equipment was inoperable, a result of the same energetic affect that had caused the systems on the shuttlecraft to fail. Without equipment, there was little that could be determined about the strange affect that was sapping their devices. It was quickly surmised by the engineer that the effect was most similar to an energy dampening field.
The Investigation
Now, trapped on the planet, the away team discovered that they really had little choice but to investigate the planet in the hopes of both finding Straton and determining the cause for the failure of their equipment.
Fitting into the roles that they had assumed before departing the Kitty Hawk, the party began to make their way towards the local village of Kondalka Village, which seemed to be the only moderate sized sign of civilization in the immediate vicinity. Along the way they encountered a crashed wagon, which contained a chest of books as well as some gold and precious gems. As there were no signs of the owners, John Linskens decided to study some of the books in the hopes of getting a glimpse into the culture and language of the place.
What he discovered immediately made the away team even more nervous. The books were written in the language of Iconian, which was developed form the ancient empire centered around Iconia. It was fortunate that Linskens had accompanied the team despite some mental problems, since he was able to quickly include his studies of Iconia, and develop a working form of the local language with little difficulty. As a result Linskens became the group translator. It was then that the away team learned that the local population was known as Iradonians.
A day or so later they reached the village, where they were attacked by a priest of the male-dominate regime. The man used advanced chemical science to immolate several of the local female members of the rebellion, as well as three members of the away team. Although he escaped, the away team was introduced to the local leader of the rebellion, the priestess of Alazara, named Bowen.
Bowen embraced the away team as a group of traveling merchants and showed them some of the hospitality of the temple.
The World Ship
Meanwhile, back in orbit the USS Kitty Hawk detected another distress signal from an unidentified vessel. Unaware that their away team had crashed, the Kitty Hawk broke orbit to respond to the plea for help.
What they encountered was a Trivaste Worldship. This massive generational vessel was designed to travel across the galaxy over the course of 1,000 years. The occupants were led by Priest Lord Elder Sh'ree'K'anKh. The group was on a pilgrimage to a planet that they called the "Mysterious Planet". It would later be discovered that the planet in question was actually Iradon.
At the time of the encounter the Worldship was under attack by a Cardassian Galor Class starship. The vessel attacked the Kitty Hawk, and did a significant amount of damage before being forced to withdraw. The Galor was forced to eject it's warp core which caused them to withdraw from the battle. An effect caused by the quantum state of the Worldship interacting with the phase cloak of the Kitty Hawk was to blame.
Offers to render aid were accepted by the Trivaste and an away team led by Tollian Yalix and Oggie Marsh visited the alien vessel to aid in the repair work. It was at that time that it became apparent that the Trivaste were beginning a hatching cycle of their locust-like young and that if quick action wasn't taken, the Trivaste aboard the generation ship would die of starvation.
As a result, repair teams worked to repair the sublight systems and the tractor arrays of both the Worldship and the Kitty Hawk, with the intention of towing the damaged vessel to its destination.
Repairs Underway
Back on Starbase Geneva Commander Zzt, Ensign Robert Lorimar and members of the Geneva yard crews worked solidly to repair the USS Boudicca as quickly as possible. A new, although temporary Commanding Officer Commander Archibald Stakes assumed command of the Boudicca in dry dock and oversaw the transfer of new crew as well as the general repair status of the ship.
The recent installation of the Tactical Interactive Holographic System aboard the Boudicca, made her the second ship in the 52nd Fleet to carry the advanced weapon's system. With a tight four day repair window to get underway, the repairs teams worked around the clock to guarantee the Boudicca's repairs were completed on-time.
With a great deal of skill and effort the teams conducted extensive repairs and installed new equipment aboard the Boudicca. Robert Lorimar assumed the position of Assistant Chief Engineer just prior to the Boudicca's departure from the starbase. Once Underway the ship made best speed for the Harvis System where they were to rendezvous with the USS Kitty Hawk already on station there.
In the Temple of the Goddess
Once the away team arrived at the Temple of Alazara, Bowen invited them to bathe and then join her for evening supper.
This gave the away team a much needed opportunity to discuss the situation that they were in and to attempt to develop a plan of action. It had by now become apparent that the rumors that they had heard of the Anointed of Alazara, seemed too closely to mimic the descriptions of Eva Straton.
With the likelihood of the Anointed and Eva being one of the same, the question became one of restricting damage done to the Iradonian culture and attempting to do so while preventing any further violations of the Prime Directive.
With only a supposition to work with it was decided that the team needed additional information and that they would attempt to acquire it from Bowen during the evening meal.
Once their baths were completed, the away team joined Bowen in the dining hall of the temple. They were treated well, with those members of the away team that were posing as leaders of the team seated at the table while the others attended them.
Jennifer Caskie, Susan Rivers, Matthew McLaren and John Linskens were all seated at the table. It had been decided ahead of time that jennifer caskie would be portraying the leader of the team to avoid endangering the security of the true leader of the team Susan Rivers.
During the meeting stories of the Anointed were discussed, and it quickly became apparent that there was no longer any doubt that Eva Straton and the Anointed of Alazara, were one and the same person.
Looking for a clue to unravel the planet's origins and discovering that the temple was the oldest of it's kind on the planet, Matthew McLaren requested, and was surprisingly granted access to the temple's Altar. he would be allowed to inspect it the following morning. He was able to convince Bowen that he was a scholar interested in studying ancient artifacts.
All their hard work was nearly lost however, when Bowen noticed that three of the members of the away team were not drinking any of their Ale. With the exception of Matthew, they had decided to minimize their consumption, which was interpreted as an insult. Fortunately, the situation was explained and rectified.
Among the things revealed at the dinner was that Bowen was able to determine that John Linskens was having mental problems. She revealed that she had some ability to ready auras as well as a limited empathic ability. It was also determined that this was not something that she was born with, as only male members of the species possess telepathic abilities. Instead, the powers were derived from the Goddess. Later Matthew determined that it was an Iconian device that enhanced the normally very weak telepathic abilities in the Iradonian women.
MORE COMING SOON!
| USS Boudicca Missions | |||
| Missions: The Anointed | Fires of Heaven | To Each His Own | A Blast From The Past | Swords To Ploughshares | Downtime | The Loudest Silence | Through The Looking Glass | Where Fools Fear To Tread | Just Another Saturday Night | Once More Into The Breach | Personal Logs | Bandits on the Surface | Dead or Alive | Starting Over | The Raven's Nest | Recurrent | |||
