It's
Cat-Who-Sleeps! Current Kzinti Warlord, demanding that the Altarans
stay away from their planet due to the plague. The Altarans claim
they've been cured, like we haven't heard that before! Krystal
volunteers to beam aboard the Altaran vessel and examine them for
plague. While she's there she finds Cat-Who-Yawns hiding out... the
plot thickens!
Cat-Who-Yawns escaped the destruction of his ship (as seen in the
previous episode). He floated around in an escape pod until the
Altarans picked him up. Meanwhile, Cat-Who-Sleeps took over as Kzinti
Warlord and has been slowly consolidating his power. Cat-Who-Yawns
knows about the secret Kzinti base on Altara and wants to use it as his
new power base.
What secret base? John has been working on the satellite records and
finds out that Kzinti ships have been dropping off men and supplies on
Altar. Once they know what to look for it's easy to scan for the base.
Now what? Three Kzinti ships coming in and if they discover
Cat-Who-Yawns on the Altara ship they'll just blow it up. So Clancy
agrees to let Cat-Who-Yawns down to the base, and he proceeds to
recruit the Kzinti there.
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The three
Kzinti arrive. Cat-Who-Sleeps threatens the Federation ship. Cat-
Who-Yawns interrupts and makes an impassioned plea. The other two ships
switch sides, leaving Cat-Who-Sleeps alone and he decides to retreat
back to Kzinti space. Clancy will have none of that though, and with
uncharacteristic viciousness chases after the fleeing feline. The
Discovery is much faster and quickly catches up to the other ship. A
brief fight ensues, and even though it seems like John can't hit the
broad side of a pulsar at 10 paces, they do eventually disable the
Kzinti ship and capture Cat-Who-Sleeps.
AAR. What did I do wrong? Cat-Who-Sleeps wasn't supposed to be
captured. In retrospect, it was a mistake as I soon as I said that the
other two Kzinti ships turned. Before then it was a definite Kzinti
advantage, take out one ship and it's a slight Kzinti edge, take out
two ships and the Discovery can take the last ship. I also hurried a
bit much and didn't play up the political aspects. The Altarans and
their plague and the Kzinti dynamics. This was not a scenario designed
for six players, so there wasn't much to do. I tried to railroad the
episode a bit too much, though thankfully I did let the players have
their way in the end.
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