SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to Stories with Dice. This is Star Trek Magellan, a Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Actual Play podcast. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps others to discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode. It is the early 22nd century, four years after the founding of the United Federation of Planets, five years since the end of the Earth Romulan War. Starfleet has renewed their mission of peaceful exploration. But something has gone terribly wrong at Cradle Station, a research outpost on the edge of Federation Space. The crew is dead, its lead scientist missing. The USS Magellan's mission: unravel the mystery of Cradle Station and boldly go where no one has gone before. So uh Ed is sporting a goatee. He's sort of like the evil Spock in the mirror universe. I like it. Try. I like it. Try. So we have oh, let's start with Ed since we've already started with Ed. Ed, you're playing who again? Remind us who you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I am playing Chief Medical Officer Scott Travis. And you're a human. I'm a human, yes. And your rank is Lieutenant Junior Grade? Lieutenant Junior Grade, that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Right. Okay. And Douglas.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yes. Hello. Who are you playing? Hello. Chief Engineer Steven Rhodes, who is the same rank as the doctor, but older.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And then we have, of course, our our captain, Tony. Captain Reports in. So Cartazareth. Captain Carthasareth. I like the way you say it better. And we're we're missing our science officer Carmelo. He could not make it today, but he will be with us again for the rest of our episodes. And actually, before we begin, Tony, why don't you give us the captain's log?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Of course. Captain's log stardate 114.6. Cradle Station's crew died after exposure to a genetic sample in quantum superposition. The monoliths they uncovered carried a warning from a lost civilization that searched the stars for life. And might have been destroyed by white what answer. My chief science officer is sedated in Sig Bay after making contact with an entity I believe is connected to the DI DNA fragment. We are en route to Corella 4 to find Dr. Kirby. But a distress call from the mining facility at the Earth suggests Caradel Station was only the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

So I would like to ask the captain if I could take the transporters offline for a couple of days to run like a diagnostic through like the whole thing. I'm in my captain's ready room. Perhaps recording my log doing its own documents. We're doing this properly. Okay. Then I guess I will buzz your door. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

You might come in?

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah. Captain? Have you got a minute? Sure. What's in your mind? I'd like permission to take the transporters offline for like a day or two to run like a full diagnostic through them. What's the reason? Based on like you saw my report on the scanner, that sort of thing. And the doctor we don't know necessarily if that body was anything related to the thing going on in the scanner, but when the doctor beamed up the body, it technically r the body was converted into like the sort of matter stream and then came up and then was run through like all our systems when it was in the pattern buffer and there through both transporters. I I can't I want to just like make sure that it hasn't done anything to our own systems, like when we converted that body into like data, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Okay, so do you want to have thorough tests of the systems? Will that hamper any other systems on the ship, or is it just that?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

It shouldn't do, but we're having all sorts of issues with like the integrated technology at the moment. Like we've got the Andorian shield generators, the computer system comes from like Vulcan, other bits are from like Tellerite and that sort of thing. So I can't say that because random things are just kind of happening anyway while we're trying to get this stuff together. But in theory, it shouldn't affect anything apart from they'll be offline for a while. But we're just a warp, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Or can you get them back up if I need to use them?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Unfortunately, we'll probably have to like take stuff apart to go and scan it with the hand scanners. So it's not going to be particularly easy to shove it all back together.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

So it's more than just some tests, you're gonna disassemble the transporters.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Well, we're gonna have to take like parts out and like scan them separately from the path buffer to make sure like there's nothing going on. It's not quite as thorough as like a f level one diagnostic where we'd just be tur taking everything apart. And you are sure that this is absolutely necessary to do it it would set my mind at ease that we weren't all going to be like blasted out into space or something was just going to change like the air to like nitrogen or pure oxygen or something like that on a whim.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Can you do it in two days? You know, I I wanna be ready when we get to the mining station. I don't want to have any hiccups. And if you tell me like a few hours before we drop out of warp that this is not gonna work and we need to rescue people from the mining station, I'm not gonna like it. So can you do it in 48 hours? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I can get that. Okay, uh if necessary, I'll agree that you requisition extra people if you need so, okay? But I want it ready in 48 hours. Do we agree?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yes, signs are sent, Captain. Very well, you're dismissed.

unknown 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

I'll leave. Get started on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Okay. So uh Dr. Travis. Yes, sir. We're gonna change scenes here to the sick bay. So shortly after your science officer left Maris was assisting the communications officer in providing all the data that you had collected from Cradle Station to transfer to Starbase 12 upon the captain's orders. He started acting strange. It looked like he was hallucinating. You you sedated him and brought him to Sick Bay to monitor him. And you've been looking at his medical records. You've been meaning to sort of catch up on the crew's medical history. And as you're looking through his records, you you're you're checking out the documentation about his ESP. It doesn't mention anything about telepathy.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So the fact that he was con conversing with some entity. It's not normal. That wasn't that most likely was not his doing. So that's something of note. And then as you're so it's, you know, a couple of maybe an hour goes by, uh, he's sedated, you're going through his records, uh, there's a notice that the transporters are offline because the engineer is running detailed maintenance. And then there is a an announcement over the loudspeakers for the senior staff to assemble in the briefing room for a communique from Commander uh Commodore Travis at Starbase 12. Commodore Travis would be your father.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Oh, Dad, great. Well, I will make sure that my patient is all fine in the biobed and has hooked up to the cortical scanners and a neural interface just to kind of monitor his all his brainwaves, and I will leave him and make my way to where I need to go.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Okay. So in this scene, we're in the briefing room of the Magellan, which is just off the main bridge. You're all seated at the conference table, and on the large view screen in the front of the room is Commodore Travis in his office at Starbase 12. And he has a solemn look on his face. Captain, we've repositioned our long-range probes to give us a glimpse of what you're getting into. There are no vessels in the Corella system, none that our probes can detect at any rate. As far as we know, the incursion is happening within the city itself, but from where and by whom is uncertain. What we do know is that the attack has compromised the city's superstructure. When you arrive, you will have roughly five hours to evacuate six hundred miners and their families before the city falls out of the sky. And then he pushes a button, and his image is replaced by this grainy shot from the probes showing you Cresida City, which is this sprawling domed city suspended high above the clouds of the planet, and smoke is billowing from various districts, and you can see sort of the f flickers of fires raging across the platforms. And then over that image, the Commodore's voice hardens. Find out what the hell is going on over there, Captain. But let me stress to you in no uncertain terms. Your mission is to save lives. We can ill afford another war. I'm sending all available ships to assist you in the evacuation. I'm afraid they won't reach you for another two hours once you have arrived. R Base 12. Out. Doctor Travis.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

You will have to prepare the sick bay and have prepare as much space as possible. We don't know what the conditions are. Do you have enough personnel to help you out in case we have severe injury?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I've got three. I'm gonna probably need to requisition some ensigns or non-coms to kind of help with triage.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Oh so. Yeah, and you'll probably need to repurpose a cargo bay or two.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah. So I'll kind of I've already thinking as as my dad was kind of going through all the kind of scenario, I was thinking about triaging and putting various things in place. So my brain is already kind of going to that. I kind of figure that we're gonna need someone who's gonna be able to coordinate the effort from the ground while I stay and I guess coordinate the effort from here.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Yeah. And Mr. Rhodes, you hired the commander. You're gonna have the transporter needs to be ready. It's good that you're gonna finish in a few hours, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Well, probably not finish, but I can certainly start putting everything back together now.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Make sure that he's in perfect shape. I'm also wondering if we should the shuttle pods, can we make them lighter? How much space do can we get them?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So you know your ship has two shuttle pods and they're built for two crew, and there are fold-out chairs in the back that can accommodate six passengers. What is the rate of the transporter?

SPEAKER_03 11:08

How many people can we bring over?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

One maybe four at a time if we're good if we get both the transporters going, maybe like eight at a time, but they need time to like cool down after each transport.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Would there be any other way that we can dock with a city and let people in?

SPEAKER_02 11:28

It's it's a floating cities, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Like in theory, we could take the ship in atmosphere. It's been done.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, it would be a little tricky, but it's not out of the realm of impossible.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

That'd be possible. Can we connect it safely in a way that we have connect put enough connections where we can just walk in?

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Yeah, we've got we've got like docking ports, but it'd be holding the ship in position in the atmosphere. It's it's not really made for that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Okay, so making you responsible to okay, finish the transporters. We might not need them, but just in case we need them, have them ready and think about how we can have this connection and personnel on site that can help them come through in an orderly fashion so we have no injured. And I guess, Dr. Travis, perhaps it would be good that you are right there also to bring them in and kind of triass as you were thinking already, who is injury, who can go to the cargo base. I want everything to run very smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

So you said you st I'm sorry, you so you still have the three days before you arrive. So if you wanted Douglas to continue with the transporter diagnostic, you could if you know, if again you can finish within like 48 hours, the way the captain suggested. But so two hours after you arrive, other ships should be in the system to assist you because there you don't have enough space to accommodate 600 people. Your ship has a can hold a crew of 132. So you you can maybe 200 at a plus. Yeah, you can put you can push that to a to accommodate some passengers and things like that in an emergency, but you won't be able to to house 600 people. There just isn't any space. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

So those other ships will be will be key. I know. I just want to make sure that we take as many as possible, just whatever happens, you know. If we need to squeeze, if we need to, I don't know, even jet is on some some cargo that we have not gonna need that we can't refill later on you know on a Star Fleet, we'll do so. So basically make a space and we figure it out later how we refill our reserves of whatever we need. I think people are more important than whatever we have in our cargo base or whatever lower space on the later squiz.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

And and you know also that Corella 4 is a is a deuterium-rich world. So the mining facility on its surface is dedicated to extracting that ore, and then the deuterium is transported to Crescida, the city above, in the clouds, and that's where the refinement process takes place. And so their mining operation is critical to the Federation's expansion in this sector, as it serves as the primary source of refined deuterium. Deuterium is needed to support fleets of starships. So without it, it would there would be delays in months-long delays in providing deuterium shipments to Starbase 12, which would delay and weaken the Federation's ability to secure and develop this sector.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

They have the stuff from the surface, they take up to the refinery. How does the stuff get from the surface to the refinery? Is it by like ship? Ship. Yeah. Cargo haulers. Yeah. So they have these haulers. Could we use the haulers to take people as well as the shuttle pods up into like space? You could. Because that would give us like more stuff going on. Yes. Okay, there's another idea.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So, what did you guys want to do for the next three days? Yes, for me, I'll start prepping the cargo spaces and the med bay, make sure that we take a full inventory of all the equipment that we have, meds, the usual sort of stuff, and then also look at alternative medicines if we've got any of that sort of stuff. I know Shaq's is a developant and his his way of doing things is slightly different to mine. He's got sort of like alternative treatments with bugs and creatures and stuff, so whatever we can do to sort of kind of bring all that together and essentially take stock of it all and sort of like start putting up together RSA be boring and put sort of like a triage plan in place. Look at all the risk factors, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Okay. Do you want to give me a we can make a we can make a a trait here that will be beneficial to you if you shouldn't succeed in a medical task? So let's see here. Well, let's have a look. I've got I'm gonna say daring. Uh oh. Daring in medicine, right? Because working under the gun here.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I guess chief medical officer is a talent of mine. Maybe that might apply. So I guess that you reduce your opportunity to cost of medical equipment and medical teams by one. So I guess if I'm looking at getting ready to arrange everything, maybe, is that uh I could blag that? Uh that would be for, let's see, that would be for doing opportunity cost, which doesn't apply to the task here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I've got emergency medicine, which is the ability to work in a trauma unit, emergency room and other kind of immediate care. So I'm guessing the ability to kind of organize and arrange that. That's one of my focuses. That works. I suppose. Use that. So your difficulty your difficulty is going to be two. Cool. Do I want to use a point of momentum? Anybody have a problem with me using a point of momentum? There's no momentum yet. Yeah, we're going to.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

There's no generate DNA.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I have to generate something. That's a good point. Um, okay, well, good old-fashioned roll then. So I'm using one of my focuses, and we'll just roll. So I got one success. One success and no momentum. No, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Okay, so yeah, so you've you've gotten sick bay as ready as it can possibly be. You've had some non-comms clear out the cargo bays, so the hallways are now stacked with all of these crates and stuff. And so you've got you've got some cargo bays ready to uh if needed to house the miners and their families and any injured people and things of that nature. Uh so you're you're about as ready as you can be. Your your sick bay is not it's not a large sick bay.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

No. It's not two or three beds or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So you're as you're you feel like you're as ready as you could be. You probably you feel like you probably could have done you you're probably missing something, but with with what you have available, you've done the best you can possibly do.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Okay. And that seems I mean, as as long as I feel like I've done as much as I possibly can, then I'm happy with that, prepared to do that. And that probably will take me what, two two days or so?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, especially clearing clearing out the cargo base and organizing all of these various people to help you out and get everything ready and get all the medicines and and the first aid kits and all of that prepared. You've you've got like a a station by the airlock. If if if you guys are able to dock with the city, then you've got someone there who can start triaging people and be like, okay, this guy just needs a band-aid, but this guy has to go into surgery, kind of a thing. Yeah, you've got that's you've got that ready. Mr. Stephen Rhodes, shall we tinker with with the transporter for a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah. Because I kind of want to know that the transporter is not affected before we have to use it like a lot. Yes. If it is compromised, we may just like accidentally compromise and kill a lot of people or do something horrible. So I've got two days to figure this out. If there's end.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Exactly, you've got two days.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

So if I haven't figured it out by two days, I'm just gonna start reassembling on the third, even if I haven't figured it out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

So let's see. How about a control and engineering task for me?

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Sure, I can work with that. I would like to use my percussive maintenance talent, which allows me to pay you one threat to convert that to a daring task. Oh, very nice. And it also reduces the in the amount of time by an interval. So it takes less time to do it. I love it. So you can have one threat. I see you've already given yourself one threat. So now it is a daring task rather than a control task, because I'm cutting corners. Your difficulty is going to be two. Two. Okay. I'm just trying to think if the I'm just seeing if the chief engineer talent gives me anything that's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

No, it only applies to an opportunity cost.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, but bringing in the team. The task, if that makes sense. If I buy the opportunity, which costs zero, I assume. Because they're just there.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Uh let's see. You reduce the opportunity cost of engineering teams by one to a minimum of zero. Further, when you attempt a task to perform repairs to a starship or attempt to push the ship's capabilities beyond its normal limits, you may spend one momentum to re-roll a D20.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Having an engineering team is going to create some sort of benefit.

unknown 20:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Why you Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So let's say that reduces your difficulty to one.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Okay, cool. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

No, you know what? Let's have them roll an assist die. So roll three dice instead of two. So let's roll three dice, and we need two successes. You have two momentum. You have four successes. Okay. So you've spent the next two days with your team crawling through the transporter machinery, the conduits, and you are certain that if that frequency, if that alien device or whatever it was on the planet wanted to co-opt your transporter, it probably could, if it could match the frequency of your transport. But has it. But you saw no evidence? You found no evidence that it has done that.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

So everything is still up to spec? Everything is up to spec, like it just came off of the assembly line. I can't think of any sort of like momentum spends I want to do on this, because don't want to re-roll anything, and I don't can't think of any additional questions relating to this, so I think I'll just dump the rest of the momentum into the pool for now. So two momentum is it? Yeah, there's two momentum in the pool, yep. Because we might need that when things start going dangerous. Also, one one thing that is bothering me at the end of the mind is that that Commodore guy. Yes. He mentioned like there was a risk of war if we failed.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Well, they don't know who's attacking the facility.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

And he said, like, if you don't succeed, this like this could be like the outbreak of war, but he never clarified on what exactly that meant.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Right. Well, no, he said he he wanted to stress to the captain the two of them have a history from the Romulan War. He wanted to stress to the captain that his mission is to save lives because they can ill afford another war. So regardless of whoever is attacking and why. He wants you guys to get those people out of there and to safety.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Right. So that's a whole level of thing that Steve Rhodes did not get because he does not know this history about the captain. So that was he's like, that was a weird remark.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah. Yeah, and if you want, you can actually probably dig through some some Starfleet records if you have a minute to like learn about it.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

I'm too busy, I don't care. I was just like that kind they were being a bit weird to each other. I'm too busy to do that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah. It's the Battle of Varka 3 is is is is sort of what Commodore Travis was referencing. So at some point if you if you wanted to look that up, if you have a minute, we could we could go there. So Captain, what are you doing in the next three days?

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Um we'll just make sure that everything is going perfectly. I will be helping people around the ship to organize things. So I'm gonna be very hands-on, being one of the team, just making sure that we make the proper space for everyone might need, you know, making space in the perhaps in the mess hall, the cargo rooms, you know. Helping, not really commanding anybody, just making sure that things get done. And you know, if I have to lift things, move things, get my hands dirty, I will do so. And in the spare time that I have on the side, I will try to see if I can get the schematics of the mining facility, you know, how is the the city on this on the clouds, and kind of get you know, kind of some strategic vision of what we are dealing with, you know, how many people, how many floors, how many cargoes, you know, whatever that might give me an edge on on the moment of need. And if I need to do something that is not expected, I wanna have all the information in my brain.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Okay. So maybe give me a control and command role. And your difficulty will be two? One success with complication. One success with a complication. I think I'm gonna bank that for now. Uh so I'll add threat to the pool. So so you've walked the decks, spoken to your crew, sort of helped them and directed them to utilize the mess hall and the recreation room and any other nonessential piece of the ship to convert it to house miners and their families from from Cresta City. And then also you've spent you've spent some time perhaps in the ready room or in your quarters over these next three days, studying the map of the of the city and the facility on the ground. But the information on the the ground operation is is practically nil. There's there's almost nothing there about how many people are on the ground at any given time mining the deuterium. All of that information is is not there.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

So the Magellan drops out of warp and moves into the solar system. Your navigator punches up Corella 4 on the main viewer. You can see that its surface is veiled in thick cloud cover, and above those clouds is the floating city of Crescida, and it's listing like a wounded Leviathan. Fires are burning across the city, smoke is trailing into the sky, and beneath the city, the air is churning with an electrical disturbance, and rippling distortion is crackling with tendrils of energy. What do you do?

SPEAKER_03 25:21

We're approaching the city. What we have been training for the last three days is gonna be tested today. We don't know what situation we are getting into, and I know that this might get dangerous. We don't know what we are facing. We have limited intel. I know you'll do the best that you have been working very hard. This is your captain. I will make sure that we get this done properly and that we get out of here and save these people. We are gonna have reinforcements in two hours, so we need to hold and help as many people as possible. I expect the best of you. Thank you. Okay. And then I will ask my navigator to approach the city. Chief Engineer, are we ready with the connections? Please help our navigator to approach the proper connection area to the for docking procedure. To the docking port. Thank you so much. Chief Medical Officer, get ready.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Captain, everything is uh ready for uh receiving anyone who is wounded, and I have entrance ready to send anyone who is not wounded to some cargo base, which have been set up for such excellence.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

And let's proceed.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Um Ed, would you like to roll for the navigator for me?

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Sure. Our navigator is Jancom. The telemetry is a telerite. Yep. What would you like me to roll? Control plus con, please. Yep. Anything that would help me? No, I don't think so. I think that it's pretty much a straightforward roll.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Is this to like navigate down or is this to actually maneuver?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

So he's plotting the course to dock with the city, and then the helm officer is gonna pilot the case.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

It wasn't piloted, so yes. His focuses are still not relevant. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

No, no, not quite yet. Okay, right, I'll make a roll. Let's have a look, see how he does.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Oh, two successes. Wonderful. So who wants to roll for Sarah Holtz, the helms officer? How about Tony? Yeah. So Tony, give me a daring and a con roll, please. And con roll. And you can use the helm operations focus. And because of because of the navigator's success, your difficulty has been reduced from three to two. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

So there you go. There you go, very good.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Okay, so so the the the Magellan has has moved into the atmosphere. It's not really a ship that's meant to you know land on planets. It's not really meant to spend a long time flying in the atmosphere. So it's it's shaking a bit. You guys are, you know, shaking in your chairs, but you maneuver the ship and you dock with Crest of the City, uh, and you're keeping the ship steady with the with the city as as as best you can. Since the city is, you know, sort of shaking apart the the ship itself is a little shaky as well. This is Administrator Phillips. Took your slow, sweet time getting here, Starfleet.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

As fast as we could. We are ready on dock. We heard that you had some trouble. Can you give dock operation it's ready? You can start bringing people, but I would appreciate a status report to know what we are dealing with. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

We're gonna need help down here. We've got creatures running amok through the city, attacking civilians. The way to the transport pads are blocked by them, and also the docking port needs to be clear. We don't have we don't have much of a standing uh combat force here. We're we're just a we're a mining city.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Are you blocked to access our ship? That's what you're trying to tell me. You cannot reach us at this moment if it's creatures.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

We have a transporter at the ready, so we can beam some people if you are in a safe location. Can we already can we use the transporters at this moment? I suppose you could. I mean, I I'm not, you know, I'm not the engineer of your ship. Very well, uh, please help on the transporter, armory officer, chief engineer, chief medical officer, come with me. You're gonna get into the city.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

So you want me to come along?

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Okay. Which case I'll hand everything over to Shax to kind of lead uh this side.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So are you beaming are you beaming over or are you taking the docking port?

SPEAKER_03 29:19

No, we are going through the dock and then requesting this another of the science people to basically start beaming people up because I'm guessing they can detect life forms or life that are not these creatures, and then basically beam everybody who is humanoid to the ship.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

So you move through the docking arm, and you've come out of the docking port into this main sort of plaza area. There's this park in the middle with some greenery and columns and a reflecting pool, and then there are our evacuees that are on the other end that are trying to get to the docking port, but they're blocked by these tentacled creatures.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

So with this uh, well, I'm guessing I came with the chief armory officer or security officer and some extra people that are actually should be helping us to get through.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

So you have some security officers here. Sorry, I'm gonna ask you a very game-related question. How how do we get supporting characters into a scene in this game? Excellent question.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Your your ship has a crew support value of three, which means that you can bring in up to three supporting characters into a scene. If that supporting character is of like a senior staff level, then that costs two. Okay. Alright. So if you wanted to bring the chief armory officer, that would cost you two of your three, and then and then you could bring one other person. Okay. Okay, so we've changed scenes and we've lost our momentum. So you you have no momentum now. So you're you've just come out of the other end of the docking arm, you're in you're in this plaza. There are these tentacled creatures preventing the miners and their families trying to desperately to get to that docking arm.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

So I'm gonna probably ask to move out like rapidly. So that would mean to move two as much as we can, and to basically to spread out in the sense meaning that you know we have two on one side, three on the other side, because there are two creatures on one side and three on the other one. So basically to kind of spread out. And I will try to split us because I know that perhaps Ed is not the best shooter. So perhaps 8 should be with one of the security.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Because he's because he's a doctor. How dare you, sir? How dare you, sir? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

So I would perhaps recommend Scott Dr. Travis to go with Kebal.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Um left hand side.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

And you go left, and I will take Henry, uh, myself, and Rhodes on the right.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Okay, so classic Star Trek question Are you having your people set their phasers to stun?

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Or no Ah, that's a good question. How do these creatures look like?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

They they're just tentacles, they're tentacled creatures.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

No, but my my my question is more are do I feel or I think that they are intelligent or that they are anything that is not just a ravenous creature.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

They're acting like ravenous creatures. Whether they're intelligent or not is you can't really tell in this moment.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

I mean, taking into consideration the difficulty and I'm not knowing if they're gonna be stunned without things, I will go deadly. So I'll ask everyone to go deadly.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Okay, so that adds one to my threat pool. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Marco, it was like at the start of the scene, I always get the opportunity to make a free question due to my talent. From what I can see, what do they appear to be doing to the people? Are they just like trying to like latch on or are they like swiping? Like, what are they doing to the evacuees?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, so they are striking them with their tentacles, and you notice that any inorganic material that those tentacles touch turns to mush. Lovely.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Interesting. I will point that out to my compatriots. Yeah, we're gonna dead to me.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

So yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

So this is how initiative works. So we'll say the captain goes first. So, captain, go ahead and move your guide to spaces. Now you have a minor action that you can take.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

I will go behind the column and aim at one of the creatures.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Okay, so now this so this is the way initiative works. So now the initiative switches to the adversaries. However, you can spend two momentum to maintain the initiative and give it to another player. Since you don't have any momentum, you can give me threat if you want to do that. No. Okay, so so one of these creatures has attacked one of the one of the miners and has just sort of like enveloped him in all of his tentacles, and you can hear the guy screaming, and you can see whatever gear that he has on his clothing is just di deteriorating. Next will be, we'll say the good doctor goes next.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, I mean I can see they're in trouble, so I am going to also run the two, but I'm gonna run there straight across. My mind, I'm not gonna take a minor action other than to sort of, I guess, prepare for something else. So maybe I might be taking out my phaser or something.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Okay. And again, they're these creatures are moving in closer and attacking the the evacuees. Douglas.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Okay, so they're just still moving in. So the captain wanted me with him, right? That was what he said, Tony.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

Precisely.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Okay, so then I will go with him. Yeah, I'm not gonna do anything particular because I think I might try and like flank around the edge.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Okay. So now these creatures have noticed you, and one moves into this zone with the good doctor as his minor action. And for his major action. Damn it, Admiral.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

He's at the line, take off the bingo. Scott is currently trying to figure out. Right, it's been a while since he's um done his security training. So he's uh bringing all that knowledge you can possibly think of to bear. But he's not really out of love.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

You might have missed the day where it was tentacle monsters.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah, I missed tentacle monster day.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

So I'm gonna spend a point of threat for an extra die.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Right away!

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I have three successes. I only needed two, so that's an extra threat. What does this mean? For me, so this means now that you take an injury, and I'm gonna spend that extra threat to increase the damage. So you you either take an injury, which means that you're defeated, so you're you're out of this, you're out of the scene, or you can take five stress. Oh, I guess you you keep the injury, but you're still in the you're still in the action. You're not defeated. I'll take the five stress, please, sir. Make a note that you have an injury and we'll figure out what that is at a later. We'll do a later moment.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

So what did it do to him?

SPEAKER_01 35:54

It struck him with its tentacles.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Wouldn't have that been a melee attack.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

It was a melee attack, yeah. They're in the same zone.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

It would be opposed, right? Because he could see it coming.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I'm sorry, I totally screwed the pooch. That's right. Let's let's do that again. So since it's an opposed roll, that means Doug uh Ed, you roll first.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

So you're gonna roll Daring and Security. Daring and security, yep. I uh just make a perform task. I've got nothing really composure. I want to go and save the people, so maybe I kind of kind of would would would that be a good enough blag that it's coming towards me and I'm kind of like thinking about like all the all the training and stuff, so I kind of try and keep myself composed. Yes. I guess that and roll. No. Oh no, okay. Let's make more sad. Thanks. You know, that's what I like to see. It was a complication and a success. So everything else stands. That's easy. But do I get one more damage though? No, five stress is fine. Cool. Put my arm up to kind of shield myself from the thing, and I kind of guess it goes across my my left arm and my shoulder and whatever it does to my I guess my uniform. The complication.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Ooh, no. Your medical trichorder has been knocked on the ground. It's fizzling and bubbling and melting. It's it's totally useless. That was the complication. So Kavall, let's have Kavall change tactics here, and now that he's seen the doctor get attacked, he from where he stands, shoots at this creature. So I'll let one of you guys make that roll.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

The way that felt bad for the doctor.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

So that would be a control security with a difficulty of two.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Two successes.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Two successes, okay. And since the phasers have been set to kill, you have disintegrated this creature. It's gone. So add right in front of you, this this these these tentacles just lashed out at you. You've your your tricorder was knocked out of you off your waist, and it's the metal is all smoldering and melting, and and then from over your shoulder, an energy beam hits the hits the creature and it just disintegrates in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

I shout thanks and then I go and hide behind the nearest column that's in the park.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Okay. So we have another tentacled creature here for his one of his actions. He moved a zone into the zone with Captain Carr and Steven Rhodes, and he is going to attack the captain. It's opposed, now I guess. Yes, it is opposed.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

So control and security? Daring insecurity. Daring and security. I don't know if they have a focus that they can use for this.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Lead by example? Like that one?

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Yeah, I guess. Can I just yeah, lead by example, just by shooting and I mean like defending myself and motivating you to to fight.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

I'll allow it. Three successes. I'm spending a point of threat to roll an extra die. Really wanna kill the captain. He fails. So he lashes out with his tentacles and misses you completely. You are definitely leading by example, Tony.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

So you may either move out of reach or spend two momentum to counterattack, inflicting an injury upon the enemy.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

So you can spend two momentum to counterattack. I'm gonna use momentum to inflict an injury. I mean, I think I will jump back and then shoot him in the face with my laser.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Okay. The tentacle.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Now, Douglas, the way that's worded, it sounds like the injury just automatically happens, right? We remember we had this really long discussion a while back. I think we said because he's already succeeded, it counts as Right. It's just he gets it, he spends two momentum to get the injury.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yep, so you've you've you've killed this creature, he's just disintegrated in front of you.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Okay, so from here I will take aim and shoot, because you know I can shoot from this distance.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yes, you can. So that is a control plus security task. Your difficulty is two, you're gonna need two successes. Daring? No, daring is for melee.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Okay, I will just move a little, you know, I just move a little. I mean, it's not real, I'm in the same zone, but I'm kind of positioning myself and then leading the charge and saying, Let's go, and I take aim at the other creature remaining, and I shoot at it. Three successes.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Okay, so you have one momentum. And this creature has also been disintegrated. Ed, why don't you give me a roll for Mr. Henry Blank? We'll do for Mr. Henry Blank.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Let's uh That's a daring plus security. Yep. Daring plus security, hopefully he's good. This yes he is. He has hand faces as a focus, so I'll guess I'll use that. Uh no, this is melee. In that case, he won't. I'll just roll the hit.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Two successes. Nice. So you get one momentum in the pool, so you have two momentum now. And he will go focus. Spending threat. Jeez, that's a lot of dice. One success. A lot of dice for one success from the creature. Okay, so you can spend two momentum to counterattack if you want. I want to do that. It would instantly give him an injury, which would Okay, so you spend that momentum. And this creature has been disintegrated. Hey!

SPEAKER_00 41:07

It is I believe it is the good doctor's turn. Yeah, so the doctor seeing that the evacuees are now free, I basically look around from behind the column, see that they're free, and I run as fast as I can towards the evacuees. Because my first priority is making sure they are safe.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Yeah, I'm s I'm still fighting for my life here.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

He's gonna move he's gonna move over one zone so that the his risk of shooting Steve is minimized, and then he will shoot. Who wants to roll for Cavalry? I will do it.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Can I use hand phasers? It's a focus I he has. Yes. Oopsie. Who twenty? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

This is the weirdest thing ever. If his phaser wasn't set to kill, I would have Stephen Rhodes get hit, but I would hate to disintegrate Steven Rhodes on episode three.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

I mean, I think I think I think Ed would, if he was GMing, but it might be set to kill but not disintegrate in fact sense. That's those are two different settings. Because like disintegrate's like when you turn it to like max. But kill is not you can kill on a lot less than max.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Right, right, right, right. Maybe something happens to the maybe something happens to the to the phaser. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna say that his phaser blows up in his hand. Caval is unconscious. Mr. Steven Rhodes, give me a melee attack, please. Opposed roll. So you just hear this, you just hear this explosion go off to your to your side here, and you see out of the corner of your eye Kaval's phase pistol blew up in his hand and he just falls to the ground unconscious. One success. One success, so Iep. Two successes. So you can either take an injury, which would make you defeated, or you can suffer four stress.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Well, I've got nine stress, so I can totally afford to take four stress.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Okay. But you still have the injury, which we'll sort of just write that down somewhere. And so yeah, so his his tentacles, you know, lash out at you, ripping your uniform, and and parts of the uniform are smoldering a little bit. There's some sort of corrosive element to their to their tentacles. And it is now, I believe I lost track. Is it's either your it's either your turn or it's the captain's turn.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Is it's the end of the captain was first, then it was then we went then Then creatures, then doctor, then I think it might even be my turn, because doctors already have it.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, it's it is your turn.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Okay, okay. I'm gonna punch it in its tentacles. You're gonna shoot it or are you gonna punch it? You heard me Marco going to punch it.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Punch it in the tentacles. Look for its armpit. Which one I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

You didn't tell me that you learned Kalak Maga.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

I mean, I'm hoping you're using a very Star Treky, I hold both my hands and a fist and punch it on this side.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

What the sucker punched. You've defeated this tentacled monster, this creature, it falls to the ground and it stops moving. I punched it very hard. You did. That was a cool maneuver. So okay. So Ed, would you like to would Scott Travis like to perform some first aid on these miners?

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Indeed. Well, first of all, I I look at them and realize that I do not have my medical scanner. But that's okay because I have got the field medicine, which means that when attempting any medicine tasks, you may ignore any increase in difficulty or complication for working without the proper tools or equipment. It's I'm I'm used to kind of working with sort of without all the technology. And I am also a first responder. I don't know whether or not that will help. When you attempt a first aid task during combat, I guess is this during combat or not? Well combat is essentially over at this point. Okay, right. Fair enough. That's fine. I won't bother with that then. But I mean it's it's still sort of I mean go ahead, continue with what you were saying, just so I can know we're so the first aid task during combat, the first die you purchase is free. Does that mean I get like a free like a free It doesn't spend it doesn't it doesn't cost you any momentum, correct? So essentially that I get to have as a base three dice further you may always succeed or I can always succeed at cost with each complication you suffer adding one to the difficulty later on, so I can save someone's life now, but later on in the l in the story it causes a problem. So first aid is daring in medicine. Your difficulty is two? Yep. Difficulty's two, I get to have three dice. I've got emergency medicine for my focus. Uh see what happens. Hooray, it's what I do. So I got three successes.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

So you've successfully provided first aid to several of the evacuees. Now what would you like to do? All of you, the whole group.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yeah, uh me, I will ask Henry to go, I guess I will assess the situation. I will ask perhaps Henry to go help Keval. Uh you know, because Caval is a I see him on the floor. So imagine something happened to him. And then I'll ask Stephen to come with me and see the what is the status report.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

The scene ends with Captain Carr and Chief Engineer Rhodes stepping through the shattered doors of the administrative building to speak with Administrator Phillips. The camera pulls back and then sweeps across the battered plaza to the docking arm. Inside, doctor Travis leads a line of evacuees, their faces drawn, their steps quickening as the Magellan airlock looms ahead. He glances back, counting heads. There's a sudden jolt of motion. We see Boots, hammer the deck, its ensign blank, charging down the corridor with the injured armory officer slung over his shoulder. Make a hole, make a hole, he shouts, weaving through the crowd. I need to get Caval to Sick Bay.