Serin ordered
the ship closer. This caused the Raider to warn off the bigger
Discovery: "meow meow (freighter drifting) meow meow (we find, crew
dead) hiss (back off!)". Serin ignored the warning and continued, so
the Raider called for help. Then it started heading for the Discovery.
A deadly game of chicken, it seemed, as both ships headed directly
towards each other. A game which the Discovery lost as Serin had them
open fire at close range.
Compensating for the ion storm, Jon fired the phasers, which smashed
the Raider's shields. The Raider fired back, scoring some damage. As
the Discovery crippled the Raider's impulse engines, two more Kzinti
Raiders arrived. Once again Serin wanted to talk first, explaining the
situation. But they were not to be deterred by mere words: "meow meow
(that's my brother) meow meow (blood oath) meow meow (I'll see you
dead!)". The Discovery retreated, stringing out the two Raiders so it
could deal with each one separately.
With all three Raiders immobile (and somewhat damaged as Jon's aim was
a bit sloppy at times), the Discovery proceeded to the freighter and
confirmed that it was the "Wandering Child". Some ten life forms were
detected on board, eight Kzinti and a couple of Andorians. The bridge
crew could only imagine the desperate deck-to-deck fighting as the
Andorians struggled valiantly against the pirates. Not seeing any way
around it, Serin ordered an away team into the freighter, which he
would personally lead.
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Uncharacteristically,
Clancy volunteered to stay aboard and personally handle the
transporters. Thoughts of a freak transporter accident wiping out the
bridge crew and leaving Clancy in charge didn't occur to anybody, so
with phasers ready and a couple of extra security guards to absorb
casualties, the rest of the bridge crew beamed into the freighter. On
getting back to the bridge, Clancy was told that the freighter had
disappeared -- seemingly vanished into the ether -- just as the
characters had beamed over. This was going to be tough to explain to
the review board...
On board the "Wandering Child", the away team found themselves in the
crew living quarters, as that was where the transporter pads were
located. Too bad they only had a brief look before the power suddenly
went out. But what about the backup batteries? They kicked in and the
lights came back on, for about two seconds before they winked out
again. Great, stuck in the dark with only the dim light of your
tricorder to see by.
Speaking of which, Beltana quickly found out that the tricorders barely
had any range (presumably because of the ion storm). She could barely
register the people around her. At least they had a map of the
freighter. With no lights and a bunch of giant killer felines wandering
loose in an unknown ship, Serin naturally ordered them to split up into
two groups (some sort of horror movie buff, I take it).
Gonar would lead a party consisting of himself, Jon, Beltana, and red
shirt Bob. Their mission was to get to engineering (all the way in the
back of the freighter) and see about restoring power. Meanwhile Serin,
Krystal, and red shirt Bud would head for the bridge and search this
area (most of the living areas were in the front of the ship).
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