With nothing
better to do, Serin and Krystal went to the small shuttle bay. Perhaps
we can run the ship off of the shuttle. Yeah, for about 10 seconds
before the power relays blow. Some prankster had evacuated the air from
the shuttle, and then gone and left a body in there. Poke a hole in the
hatch so that air will bleed in, then it's easy to open. Inside they
found a dead Andorian in a space suit with a couple of empty air
bottles. Perhaps he was trying to escape the horrible wails of the
lobster things -- they say sound doesn't travel in a vaccuum.
With the shuttles sensor's, Serin saw that four Kzinti were in
Auxiliary Control. Reforming the away team, they proceeded to AuxCon
where they found four stunned Kzintis being feasted on by four lobster
things. Four phaser blasts later and problem solved. Patch up the cat
people, who are rather sullen at being captured. But Jon explains how
they obviously thought that the freighter was abandoned, so no harm
done. They accept that explanation from a fellow felinoid race.
Krystal and Serin revive the Andorians, who explain their sad tale.
They were transporting rare Klingon lobster delicacies and had decided
to open up a sixpack for dinner. Little did they know that the lobster
weren't dead, just frozen. Their keening wail stunned the Andorians and
these two rushed out. That's all they knew.
Clancy, not wanting to be totally useless for the rest of the adventure
(and the GM had hinted that everyone should transport into the
"Wandering Child"), came up with a desperate plan. He and six security
guards packed themselves into a shuttle. Tying a cable to the back of
the shuttle, they leapt through the rift and coasted towards the Child.
One little problem though, Clancy had neglected to take into account
the freighter's drift, and they would stop short by the time the cable
ran out. Doh!
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But, as long
as he was closer to the freighter, and no longer in an ion storm, he
could communicate with the away team, which he did. "Hi Clancy, so you
finally found a way to cut through the ion storm's interference, eh?
What! Dimensional rift? Parallel universe? Well, I guess that explains
a couple of things." That was going to be a problem. How to get back to
their universe, with the cat people and two Andorians, and with the
medical supplies (which was a deck's worth). A bit much to fit into the
freighter's lone shuttle...
Not that the shuttle was going to work if the engines were out. But
Serin remembered that it was an old sublight shuttle and it had solid
fuel maneuver thrusters. Everybody pile into the shuttle! Despite the
meows and scratches, everyone made it inside. Then open the shuttle bay
and drift out. With Serin at the helm (probably so that he wouldn't
have to be squished in with the mass of beings back there), they slowly
came around the ship--
--and they see that the freighter also has solid-fuel maneuvering
thrusters. Hmm, maybe they can get the whole freighter back? Turn the
shuttle around (hey, watch how you're driving!) and back into the
shuttle bay. Then it was a matter of hooking up the freighter's
batteries to the controls (too bad they never checked the lower battery
room, resetting the circuit breakers would have helped them immensely).
Once all was set Krystal flew them back through the rift and into the
welcome arms of the ion storm. The Kzinti were free to go, and that
they did. They later found the rest of the freighter's crew in the
bridge. Apparently the Tellarite engineer had dragged them away from
the lobster things, put them in space suits, then evacuated the only
bridge, which was the only room in the freighter big enough to hold
them that had a bulkhead door.
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