T’Leth kept her eyes closed. Her facial expression betrayed her deep concentration. With her left hand on the Betazoid woman and her right hand on a spheroid receptacle, she felt her physical presence dissipating as two other minds touched her own. One, the Betazoid, Viadne. The other, the Vulcan/Romulan, S’Task. The disembodied essence of S’Task had occupied Viadne’s mind for over three months, sometimes suppressed, sometimes dominant, but never belonging there.
T’Avaya had been watching the Vulcan master T’Leth for over an hour. The process of removing the katra, the essence, from a mind and instilling it into a receptacle was a long and arduous undertaking for any Vulcan master. It was usually done when a Vulcan was close to death, the Vulcan’s own katra removed from the body. It was rare that a non-Vulcan body would contain a Vulcan’s katra. Even though Viadne was a Betazoid, and thereby had natural psionic abilities beyond many humanoid races, she had spent many years as a Borg drone, rendering her psionic abilities repressed and weak.
That the katra of S’Task had survived all this time was amazing. S’Task had been alive during the Time of Awakening, when Surak had convinced the majority of the Vulcan people to embrace logic and stoicism and to leave behind their violent ways. S’Task did not want to follow Surak’s ways, so he led eighty thousand Vulcans away from their home in search of a new home, one where they would be free to live their lives by following their passions and their warrior aggressions. S’Task and his followers were often referred to as “those who marched beneath the raptor’s wings”, and later as “the Raptor’s Children”, and even later as “Romulans”. It has been over two thousand years since that Time of Awakening. And now, somehow, S’Task’s katra had been found aboard a crashed ship and had been implanted in Viadne’s mind when she had found the ship as a Borg drone. How surprising that she was freed from the Borg more easily than she was from the katra, T’Avaya thought.
The Vulcan master suddenly opened her eyes and folded her hands in front of her. “It is done,” she said.
T’Avaya stood and asked, “Do you require assistance?”
“No. I will rest now,” T’Leth said, as she quietly left the room.
T’Avaya walked over to the bed. Viadne was still unconscious. She would be so for at least another two hours. T’Avaya turned to look at the receptacle containing the soul of S’Task. The white spherical object glowed as if it had a light inside. The glowing pulsed. She found the rhythmic pulse very soothing. She lifted the globe with great care. She placed it in a white transluscent cube-shaped box at the foot of the bed and carried it to her small scout ship. She would bring the katra with her to Gamma Volantis. There, she would work with others to examine the crashed Romulan ship where the katra had been found. She would much rather take it to the Hall of Ancient Thought on Vulcan, where it would be laid to rest with the other great minds of Vulcan’s past, but the Romulans had laid a claim on the katra. S’Task had been the first leader of the Romulans, so the Romulans claimed first rights to the katra, just as Vulcans claimed first rights as S’Task had been born a Vulcan citizen.
Would the matter even be settled on Gamma Volantis? Probably not, T’Avaya thought. It would just be a meeting of Vulcans and Romulans as both studied the ship to try to determine how it had crashed and how it had come to have S’Task’s katra. S’Task was presumed to have died on Romulus, and Romulans had never adopted the Vulcan practice of preserving katras. Indeed, the Romulans had lost their telepathic abilities in the centuries since the Time of Awakening.
Starfleet Intelligence Mission Log. Stardate 45125.7. Agent T’Avaya reporting. I have arrived with Vulcan Master T’Leth on the uninhabited planet Gamma Volantis on the outskirts of Romulan space. An ancient Romulan ship, the Ket-Cheleb, crashed here almost two millennia ago. The ship was discovered four months ago by a crashed Borg scout ship. The only surviving Borg, a Betazoid, inadvertantly uncovered the katra as it entered her mind when she connected her Borg nanoprobes to the ship. The Romulan ship and the Betazoid were later discovered by Romulans. They disconnected her from the Borg collective, and took her to Romulus for study. A telepathic Reman named Xiokir discovered that the Betazoid woman’s mind contained the katra, living soul, of S’Task. The Romulans orderd many invasive tests and procedures on the Betazoid to have the katra removed and studied, but to no avail. The Romulans do not possess such technological or telepathic capability. A Romulan nurse took pity on the Betazoid, Viadne, and helped her escape to a nonalligned world that was willing to help her. She is now living on that world, while I now have the katra in a safety receptacle.
T’Leth and I will be working with the Romulans to examine the Ket-Cheleb while trying to reach an agreement on what to do with it and the katra.
Commander Darat was tapping a computer console. It defied her touch by refusing to power on. “No power. No accessable data banks. No sign of life,” the Romulan declared.
“I saw the engine room,” said Naluk. “It was totally inoperable. This ship lost all power when it crashed two thousand years ago.”
“Any idea where the ship was headed?” Commander Darat asked. Naluk was a Romulan historian and archaeologist. He explained that the ship was meant to be a long range transport ship. But Romulans of that time were still getting settled on Romulus. There were no records of any of them leaving the planet. This ship also appears to not have had a crew. Its navigation system must have been set for a particular destination.
Suddenly, Darat and Naluk heard a strange buzzing sound. They started looking around. The ship still looked dead. They could not tell where the sound came from.
***
T’Avaya landed her small scout ship on Gamma Volantis several meters away from the Ket-Cheleb. The Romulan warbird orbiting the planet was a good sign that the Romulans were probably already inside the Ket-Cheleb recording their findings.
“Something is happening,” said T’Leth from behind her.
T’Avaya turned around. T’Leth had opened the box containing the katra. T’Leth said the orb had started glowing brightly inside the box. When she had opened the lid, it glowed continuously, instead of pulsing as it had done before.
“Perhaps it is reacting to a magnetic resonance field on the planet,” T’Avaya said.
T’Leth agreed it was possible. Hardly any katras were ever taken off the Vulcan homeworld, so who knew how they would react on another planet? She closed the lid, and they left the scout ship.
As the two of them walked toward the crashed Romulan ship Ket-Cheleb, T’Avaya looked at its outer hull. It had obviously been built on Romulus. But the design was very similar to that of the old Vulcan ships of that time. The name “Ket-Cheleb” was painted on the ship’s port side in the old Vulcan script. It was the name of the Vulcan god of war. The two women walked inside. They heard a strange buzzing sound. They saw two Romulans, a male and a female. The male was holding a Romulan tricorder. The Romulans looked at them as they entered. The female spoke first. “I am Commander Darat. This is historian Naluk.”
The Vulcan women introduced themselves. T’Avaya asked what the buzzing sound was. Darat said it had just started a few minutes ago. Naluk said, “My tricorder readings show microscopic electromachines in the air, too small to be seen with the eyes. There are fifty-three of them floating around us. They are making the buzzing sound.”
T’Avaya turned on her tricorder and confirmed. T’Leth and T’Avaya both said they could sense an intelligence in the micromachines. T’Avaya’s tricorder showed they were gathering around the other Vulcan. T’Leth could feel it. She said, “They sense I am the stronger telepath. They are communicating with me.” She closed her eyes for several seconds.
When she opened her eyes, she said the machines contained the memory engrams of S’Task’s personal guards. They were his Arrain, personal Centurians. They had been sent with the katra to protect it. Two thousand years ago, his most loyal followers had known he was about to be murdered by one of his enemies on Romulus, and the followers knew they would not be able to stop it. So they removed his katra right before he was murdered and secretly put it on the Ket-Cheleb. The ship’s navigational system was set for Barradas III, the home planet of the Debrune. They knew the katra would be safe there. Debrune was a planet that had been colonized by Vulcans who had left the home planet during Surak’s time, but had not traveled as far as the rest of S’Task’s people.
Naluk said the ship must have been thrown off course. Gamma Volantis was not on the spatial path from Romulus to Barradas III. T’Leth said the beings communicated that a spatial anamoly had thrown the ship off course and caused it to crash on this planet. The Arrain could sense that S’Task’s katra was nearby, and that it was active. The Arrain had been unconscious from the time the ship crashed, only becoming active now that the katra was active and in close range. As T’Leth communicated this to the others, she left out the fact that the Romulans had discovered the Arrain four months earlier when they had been aboard this ship. T’Avaya found it fascinating that the Romulans had the technology to create these microscopic machines and upload memory engrams into them. Naluk explained that there was much old technology the ancient Romulans posessed that had been lost on Romulus. Just trying to survive and tame a new planet had taken up most of their time and resources back then. But these machines did not contain actual katras, only memory ingrams and a certain level of artificial intelligence so they could adapt to some situations long enough to get the ship to to its destination.
Naluk explained that he himself was now part of a small group of followers of S’Task. They sought to honor his memory. So much of Romulan society was spent advancing the military or the careers of politicians that it was easy to forget the past. Their group had come here hoping to learn more about S’Task from this ship and from his katra. The two Vulcans had never heard of such a group existing on Romulus. Naluk said that “Federation propaganda” only told them what the Romulan military was up to, never letting them know that there were many civilian citizens who had other interests. T’Avaya had visited Romulus as a Section 31 operative and knew first hand that Naluk spoke the truth, though that was not something she could reveal at this time.
“Nor should your little group get recognition,” said Darat. “You worship S’Task as a poet and philosopher, like a weak Vulcan. S’Task’s greatness was his leadership as a soldier. He led us away from Surark’s pallid philosophy to be our own great race.”
“He was a great leader. But he was also a great person in his own right,” Naluk countered. “He had a balanced mind. He not only wanted us to be great warriors, but also great artisans who could build a solid foundation for an empire.”
“I am a member of the Barel clan,” Darat proudly proclaimed. “S’Task honored our earliest Romulan forebearer by entrusting him with his sacred staff. Because of that, my family owes much to S’Task. THAT is his legacy to the Romulan people. My family has contributed much to shape the military and the senate.”
Naluk spat at her. “The success of ONE family is an insult to the great S’Task’s legacy.”
T’Avaya mused that these two had probably had this debate before and would again. She decided it was time to change the subject. She said she wanted to study the Arrain to see how microscopic objects could successfully carry memory engrams. And since they were micromechanical, she may be able to find a way to help them communicate more easily with non-telepaths, such as Romulans. T’Leth gave her a dissatisfied look and said, “You do not trust my communication with them?”
“It is not a matter of trust,”T’Avaya said. “It would be more efficient if we could communicate with them without needing one person as a go-between. I am also interested in studying the technology of their construction. As an engineer, I find it fascinating.”
T’Leth bowed her head in agreement. T’Avaya said she would need to build an electric isomietic field generator. The machines would be able to attach themselves to it harmlessly, and it would project their thoughts through a speaker. But she would need a molecular impulse conduit. She did not have one on her ship, and there was no such thing on the Ket-Cheleb.
Commander Darat said, “You can build it from my warbird. I will have one of my engineers assist you.”
The Vulcan engineer was surprised by the Romulan commander’s willingness to help.
When the others beamed up to the warbird, T’Leth asked to stay behind a few minutes. She wanted a little more time with the Arrain. She reached out to the Arrain telepathically. As a Vulcan master, she had great mind control. Still, it required some effort to touch minds with them without letting them know her true intentions.
“You will not take us,” they said to her.
She told them they could have a resting place next to S’Task’s katra in the Hall of Ancient Thought.
“You want to use us. The others told us. We will not be used to wage wars against your enemies.”
She tried to gain their trust. She failed. Just like Romulans, she thought, so paranoid.
***
After T’Avaya had spent several hours working with the Romulan engineer to build the field generator, Naluk invited her to join the followers of S’Task (the Vrinsuthe, as they were called) in the Kutasia ritual. He explained that it was a meditation ritual performed weekly by the Vrinsuthe. T’Avaya found it interesting and, feeling that she had reached a point where she could use a diversion, said she would join. T’Leth had been invited, but was feeling fatigued and did not wish to participate.
T’Avaya changed into the light green robe she had been asked to wear. She entered the room with the other Vrinsuthe. They were all dressed the same as she. There were two rows of small pillows on the floor. Each person sat on a pillow. There was one Romulan standing at the front of the room. He lit two candles, then read an ancient poem in Romulan. Then everyone closed their eyes and meditated. After twenty minutes, the leader rang a bell. Everyone stood up from their pillow. They all formed a circle along the outer perimeter of the room and started walking clockwise. They were still very silent, still meditating. After another twenty minutes, everyone took the pillow they had previously sat on and moved it to the outer perimeter of the room, forming a circle, and sat back down on the pillows. Then the leader passed around an ancient tome that was written by S’Task, and each person read a line from it. Then, another bell, and everyone was dismissed.
Afterwards, Naluk asked T’Avaya what she thought of the ritual. She said she found it quite stimulating. She noticed the tome they read from, Force Will Not Avail You, was one of S’Task’s works that had been discovered on Vulcan hundreds of years ago by an archaeologist named T’Pek. How did the Vrinsuthe manage to get a copy of it? Naluk said it must have been smuggled to Romulus hundreds of years ago.
T’Avaya did not know any Romulans practiced meditation. It was a common daily exercise with Vulcans. It had only been started after Surak’s time as a way of calming the mind to keep emotions in check. So why then, did Romulans do it? Naluk said S’Task had been a student of Surak for many years before the Time of Awakening, as many knew, and that Surak had often advocated meditation as a path to calmness and inner peace. T’Avaya mentioned how this Kutasia ritual was different in some ways from the Vulcan meditation practice. Vulcans prefered to meditate in private, whereas the Romulans did it in a group. Naluk admitted that Romulans were clearly more sociable than Vulcans and that that was neither good nor bad, just a difference. T’Avaya said she was pleased to see that this was something Vulcans had in common with their distant brothers. She thought of Ambassador Spock and his reunification movement that still was ongoing on Romulus.
Mission Log. Supplemental. I have built an electric isomietic field generator to help the Arrain communicate more easily. The Arrain will be more comfortable in their own environment, so I have taken the generator to their ship. I am very impressed by the hospitality of the Romulans. They all seem amicable and helpful. It almost seems to be a ploy. But to what end? Perhaps I am being too paranoid.
The Vulcan engineer turned on the field generator. The dome on its top glowed bright blue. The computer screen on its side showed ready to receive. T’Leth said she could sense the Arrain were aware of the generator. They were coming towards it. A voice came from the generator.
“Who are you?” it said. T’Avaya explained about the crashed ship and the katra of S’Task.
The voice said, “You will not take us.” T’Avaya tried to explain that they only wanted to take the katra to its final resting place on Vulcan.
“You will not take us,” again came from the voice modulator of the field generator.
Naluk said, “It is a great honor to meet those who knew the great S’Task in person.”
The Arrain replied, “Who are you?”
“I am a loyal follower who has studied the teachings of S’Task. There are several like me who honor his memory.”
The voice said, “It is trickery. The others told us.”
“What others?” T’Avaya asked.
“The others were here before. They were our brothers. Romulans. But they sought to use us. Wanted to use us to build synthetic brain to infiltrate their enemies. Wanted to use us to build computer virus to infiltrate enemies’ computers.”
Darat said, “Their memories must be faulty. Most Romulans abhor the idea of synthetics. Or perhaps others have been here who were not Romulans.”
T’Leth said that she would like to speak to the Arrain alone. She felt that she could convice them that they were in no danger. Darat tried to protest, but T’Leth stood her ground. They reluctantly left the ship.
Once the others were gone, T’Leth knew she could speak plainly to the Arrain. She heard their plea again.
“You will not take us.”
She told them they could have a resting place next to S’Task’s katra in the Hall of Ancient Thought.
“You want to use us. The others told us. We will not be used to wage wars against your enemies.”
T’Leth reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pyramid-shaped object. She focused her thoughts through the object. In her mind, she could hear the thoughts of the Arrain. “Yes. The others were here before,” she told them. “They could not contain you, but I can.” All she had needed was the field generator that T’Avaya had built. It made the Arrain just pliable enough for her mind to overwhelm them. She urged them into the pyramid prison in her hand. They could not resist.
As T’Avaya and Commander Darat met Naluk outside the Ket-Cheleb, T’Avaya wondered just how far she could trust them. Or how much she could trust T’Leth. She had sensed something very strange when they were inside the Ket-Cheleb. The Arrain seemed fearful. And T’Leth seemed a little too confident in herself, as if she knew something about them. And she didn’t seem curious about them at all. Perhaps it was her superior telepathic powers. Still, T’Avaya felt something odd was amiss.
Naluk asked, “Would it be possible to use the field generator on the katra? I would very much like to speak with S’Task.”
T’Avaya answered, “No. The generator only works on the Arrain because they are physical machines that house engrams. The katra is not a machine and works on different principles.”
“Ah. Unfortunate.”
T’Leth came out of the ship and held up her pyramid-shaped object and said, “The Arrain are in here. They will be safe until we get to Vulcan. They will be put in the Hall of Ancient Thought next to S’Task.”
Darat drew her pistol and aimed it at T’Leth. “You will hand them over to us! You can have the katra. But the Arrain are made of technology the Tal Shiar is very interested in.”
Darat is Tal Shiar? T’Avaya thought. Then why has she been so cooperative?
Suddenly, T’Leth disappeared in a dazzling display of light. She had been beamed away. Commander Darat called her ship. They said their sensors had just picked up the transporter activity. They could not trace the source. Could it have been a cloaked ship? There was a sensor blip that had lasted a few seconds and was gone. They detected no tachyon emissions that would suggest a cloaked ship. And sensors detected no other life signs on the planet and no other ships in the area.
T’Avaya went back to her scout ship. The katra was still there. It still had the odd glow that it had when they landed on the planet, not the natural pulsing she had seen before. She felt a faint telepathic presence from it, as if the katra was dormant. She looked around to see if T’Leth had left any personal effects that may give a clue to her whereabouts. She found nothing. The other Vulcan had not brought anything with her except an extra robe. She checked the pocket of the robe. There was a hypospray. It was common for Vulcans of T’Leth’s advanced age to be on some type of regular medication. She opened it up. When she removed the middle section, she noticed it had an extra piece. It was a communicator hidden within the hypospray.
***
T’Avaya checked her ship’s communication logs. T’Leth had not made any personal communications. She checked the sensor logs. The hidden communicator had been set for a low epsilon e-band. She recalibrated her ship’s sensors to scan for that band. If she had access to the communications array she had built for Space Station Tyrellia, she would be able to easily track any communications on that band. She sent a communique to Luruwa, her assistant engineer who was temporarily maintaining the station array while T’Avaya was away. She told Luruwa to transmit a sensor signal from the array that would be able to detect epsilon e-band transmissions. Moments later, Luruwa sent the signal. T’Avaya was able to detect traces of an epsilon e-band wave that had come from an area of space above the planet’s south polar region. She decided she would have to trust the Romulans to help her. She called them from her scout ship and explained what she had found and asked to go back to their warbird. She took the field generator with her.
From the warbird, she and the Romulan engineer found a cloaked ship above the Gamma Volantis’ southern pole, right where T’Avaya had tracked the wave. Instead of tachyon emissions, the ship emitted inter-phasic tetryon particles that could be detected using the same frequencies that were calibrated for e-band waves. Darat ordered the warbird to move closer to the cloaked ship. As they approached, the other ship decloaked. That was much too easy, Commander Darat thought. The ship hailed them.
T’Leth appeared on the screen. “Clever that you were able to detect this ship. No matter. This ship has a quantum slipstream drive. I will be leaving this sector in five minutes, and you will not be able to follow.”
T’Avaya had recognized both T’Leth’s secret communicator and the design of T’Leth’s ship. “You are Section 31.”
“Not really hard to figure out, was it?” T’Leth answered.
“What do you want with the Arrain?” Darat asked.
“They have the potential to be weaponized in a number of ways. We can reprogram and use them like computer viruses. We will use them on whatever enemy we deem a threat to Federation security. They are perfect. Being able to travel through air, and being microscopic, they can infiltrate beings or computers. And with emotional imprints, we may also be able to use them for mind control. We may be able to use them as a model for artificial intelligence that would never become sentient, and therefore, never become a threat to its creators. Anything that gives us an advantage over our enemies.”
T’Avaya still wanted to know something else. “We just discovered these Arrain. How did you know they were here?”
“They were discovered by Commander Vemel when his crew found Viadne. But at the time, they could not contain them or study them. The Reman, Xiokir, could sense their intelligence, but could not communicate with them. However, they, apparently, could understand Vemel and Xiokir’s talk about their potential use as weapons. We needed you to come here with your engineering knowledge to build the field generator. Also, S’Task’s katra needed to be freed from Viadne’s mind to make the Arrain fully open to communication.”
Darat said, “So they were the ‘others’ that the Arrain spoke of. But there was nothing in Vemel’s report about finding these Arrain.”
T’Leth said, “Section 31 made sure that that part of the records was erased. We couldn’t let anyone know before we could come back and retrieve them.”
On the Romulan ship’s forward view screen, T’Avaya saw the pyramid that housed the Arrain had been set on a table behind T’Leth. T’Avaya increased the power on the electric isomietic field generator. She saw the small pyramid behind T’Leth begin to vibrate. Then, it started making a loud buzzing noise. T’Leth turned around and saw the pyramid rise into the air as it kept vibrating and buzzing.
“What is happening?” T’Leth gasped.
T’Avaya said, “I am using the field generator to destroy the Arrain. They will understand. They said they did not want to be used. I know they would prefer death to being manipulated.”
T’Leth watched in horror as the small pyramid began turning somersaults in the air. Then it vibrated violently. The buzzing got louder. Then it exploded into tiny fragments. The shattered pieces fell to the deck.
Darat said, “T’Leth, you will surrender yourself and your ship to us now! Or we will fire on you and destroy your ship!”
T’Leth broke the transmission. Commander Darat ordered her weapons officer to lock weapons on the Section 31 ship. Then, everyone on the warbird watched as the Section 31 ship disappeared in a flash of light. She had used the slipstream drive to get away.
“Kllhe'mnhe!!!”, Darat yelled.
***
T’Avaya, Commander Darat, and Naluk were in Darat’s office.
Naluk asked Darat and T’Avaya, “Did any of you know that T’Leth was Section 31?”
The two women looked at each other. No. They did not.
“And you, Darat,” T’Avaya said, “Why is the Tal Shiar here?”
“I was sent here to make sure the katra got sent to Vulcan and not Romulus. And to retrieve the Arrain for study.”
That was surprising to Naluk. He said, “Why did the Tal Shiar not want the katra?”
“As I know T’Avaya already found out from her experience with Viadne,” Darat said, “we cannot let the Romulan people find out that S’Task did not actually know the my clan, the Barel family. My family is too important. We have many members in high places in the government and military.”
Naluk was taken aback. “You did this to keep your family in power? For some kind of false birthright? There are so many poor families on Romulus; those who have little to eat, much less power or prestige. It is another reason I belong to the Vrinsuthe. We believe the original teachings of S’Task emphasized a more balanced republic.”
Darat just shook her head and smiled. “I was following orders from the Tal Shiar. It just so happned that my orders benefitted me and my family.”
“ ‘Just so happened’,” spat Naluk. “Why did you allow the Vrinsuthe aboard your ship? You knew we would want the katra.”
“You are here in case we needed someone with more historical knowledge of S’Task and the Arrain. We could easily dispose of you if you became a problem. But it is a shame the Arrain had to be destroyed,” Darat said.
Mission Log. Supplemental. I am on my way to Vulcan with S’Task’s katra. Before I left the Romulan warbird, I had one more conversation with Naluk. I told him the Arrain were not destroyed. They are inside my field generator. I had built it to contain them for their own safety. They were drawn inside the generator before T’Leth tried to coerce them into her device. I had suspected that T’Leth had some kind of ulterior motive concerning them. Why else did she insist on speaking with them in private? The field generator was able to destroy T’Leth’s device because the device was set to the same modular frequency as the generator. The Arrain will be put in the Hall of Ancient Thought with the katra. I also told Naluk there was no need to be jealous of the Barel clan. Success comes in many forms. His own spiritual enlightenment with the Vrinsuthe is proof of that. He said he would have liked to have S’Task’s katra on Romulus, but he knew it would be safer on Vulcan.
I have alerted Starfleet Intelligence that the Vulcan master T’Leth was a Section 31 operative and that she fled before she could be captured, but she did not take the Arrain. I must say that working for Starfleet Intelligence has been a challenging and rewarding experience. There were many unforeseen events. The Romulans proved much better allies than the Vulcan master. I remember that one of the writings of S’Task from “Force Will Not Avail You” was-- We are all connected, despite being worlds apart. That certainly applies to Vulcans and Romulans. Though the two races have grown apart, Naluk has shown me how they are still similar. Perhaps one day we will indeed see Spock’s dream of reunification.
-by the Honorable Kavura
Thank you for reading my Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log mission report. Captain’s Log is a solo roleplaying game by Modiphius Entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.