Mission Log

Episode IV: Predators

Date: 37:5:18 - 37:5:19

On arrival at the abandoned station, the Hammer detected a ring of objects surrounding the station. The objects turned out to be space mines and were quickly destroyed. Once it was determined that there were no life signs aboard the station, the Hammer docked with the unlit station.

The boarding crew discovered the presence of a booby trap in the airlock and had to rely on JD's demolition skills to disarm the cunning trap. Once safely onboard the station, Kribaczek brought up life support and emergency lighting using the station's batteries. The boarding party then split up into two teams, one charged with bringing the main power online, whilst the other was to explore the station and gain access to the station's mainframe computer system. The team responsible for bringing the power online later broke down into two teams so one could undertake repairs in the powercore, whilst the other team prepared to initiate power up.

Whilst doing the repairs in the powercore, Kribaczek and his team of two engineers heard a strange banging sound coming from outside the powercore, but they continued to carry out the repairs. Meanwhile, Raggy and two other engineers were preparing for bringing the power online, when Raggy felt a sharp pain in his back and collapsed...

At this time Aaron and his team were on the station's bridge, trying to access the station's captain's office computer using a jury-rigged power source, with little success. During the process of exploring the bridge Alyssa put her hand in what looked to be congealed food paste whilst using the autochef.

Kribaczek and his team completed the repairs on the powercore and comlinked Raggy's team to inform them of their success. There was no response. Worried, Kribaczek contacted Aaron and informed him that he couldn't raise Raggy. Aaron decided to rendezvous with Kribaczeck in the powercore, before they headed for main engineering.

When they arrived in engineering they were greeted by a blood bath. The two engineers had been slashed open and decapitated, and Raggy was lying face down in a pool of blood. Rushing Raggy's side they found that the mighty Wookie was still alive and that the pool of blood he was lying in belonged to one of the deceased engineers. It turned out that Raggy's wounds where fairly minor, a gunshot wound to his back and a nasty looking bruise on the head where'd fallen onto the floor. Amazed that there appeared to be no injuries on the attacker's side, Aaron posted guards, questioned Raggy and instructed the others to search all the nearby rooms for any signs of the murderers. Meanwhile, the remaining engineers brought the power online. After hearing Raggy's version of what happened and with the search turning nothing up, Aaron deduced that the attackers must have used the ventilation shafts in the ceiling.

Aaron decided to try and bring the station's internal sensors online so they could track down the enemy. Keeping the entire team together Aaron led them to one of the turbolifts. On arriving they found that the turbolifts were not working, so they climbed up one of the turbolift shafts. When they reached the top of the shaft they found that the turbolift doors had been electrified. Not wanting to risk disabling the trap, Aaron ordered the team back down, figuring that access could be gained using the ladders in the powercore.

The team arrived at the bridge with no further incident. Aaron posted Zulah and Alyssa on guard whilst the rest of the team secured the bridge. Alyssa requested on several occasions to go and hunt the murderers, but her requests where flatly refused by Aaron. With the bridge secure, one of the engineers attempted to bring the station's internal sensor's online. The engineer managed to bring the sensors online, but they kept giving bizarre readings as if they were being jammed. As she was reporting this to Aaron, the engineer was shot in the back of the head and she slumped over the control board. Aaron detected a flicker of motion in the ventilation shaft above and behind the dead engineer. Wasting no time Aaron fired at what he believed to be the murderer, with the rest of team firing moments later. Once they deemed the murderer neutralised, they cut a hole out of the shaft and a body dressed all in black fell to the floor. The dead black clad human male was wearing an usual device on his forearm and was carrying a silenced pistol and vibroblade. When JD inspected the forearm device more closely it start hissing and smoking. Fearful of what might happen they threw the corpse into a nearby room. Shortly after the corpse landed, the forearm device detonated, leaving the corpse in an even messier state than before.

Disheartened with the loss of another member of the team and the lack of progress in finding the attackers, Aaron led the team back down to engineering. On arriving he instructed the remaining engineers to isolate the power to the turbolifts and to cut off all power to the top two decks. He then sent Krib, Alyssa and Zulah to investigate the medi bay.

After searching the medi bay and reporting in that there was nothing in there of any interest, Aaron decided that they should investigate the bottom two decks of the space station to see where their attacker came from. Aaron arranged for the two groups to meet up by one of the turbolifts.

On their way to the rendezvous point, another two black clad men attacked Aaron's group. In the ensuing gunfight, the two remaining engineers were killed as where the two attackers. Upon hearing the fighting Krib and Zulah rushed to their aid, whilst in the confusion Alyssa slipped off...

Krib and Zulah were unaware of Alyssa's disappearance until they met up with Aaron's team. Dismayed with the situation Aaron ordered Krib and Zulah to go and find her, whilst the rest of the team headed back to engineering. When they reached engineering JD proceeded to booby trap the vent shaft that led into engineering. Krib and Zulah returned a short while later with no Alyssa in tow.

Now determined to hunt down these strange black clad men and to find Alyssa, Aaron decided that they will go down and check the two levels below. On the climb down the turbolift shaft, Raggy was snared by a metal wire noose that got around his neck. Something or someone then lifted him off the ceiling of the turbolift car. Chaide and Zulah eventually manage to cut him down and free him. The group then started to do a sweep of the level below the engineering deck.

As the team were searching the level they came across another of the black clad men, this one however was dead. The corpse was still warm. Alyssa must have been here. Now a bit more hopeful that they would find their friend the group continued on. Not long after they started searching again, they ran into a security droid, which started spraying them with gunfire. The group managed to destroy the droid pretty quickly and moved on to continue their search.

As the search continued, JD stumbled into a claymore mine trap, setting off nearly a dozen of them that covered the entrance to the hanger bay. Amazingly, no one in the group was seriously injured. After dusting themselves off and seeing to their injuries the group continued the search of the hanger bay. During this search they came across a small vessel called the Blue Rain. Krib did a quick inspection of the vessel and found that if a bit of work was carried out on it, the vessel could be brought back into service. Moving on, they continued their search but found nothing of any significance, and so moved down to the final level.

When they arrived the level appeared to be nothing like the deck plan that they had downloaded onto their datapads. Cautiously the group began to search the level with JD leading and Krib at the rear.

Just as the group was rounding a bend someone attacked Krib, burying a knife into his chest. Krib collapsed to the floor as the others turned to find out what had happened. The attacker was gone. Seeing his life's blood pouring from his wound Zulah picked Krib up and took him to the bottom of the corridor, which was a dead end. As JD rushed to treat Krib's injuries, Zulah and Raggy took guarding positions at the other end of the corridor whilst Aaron stood guard over Krib and JD.

A flash of movement caught the guards' attention at the other end of the corridor. Zulah, followed closely by Raggy, charged at the attacker. It was Alyssa! After a brief firefight, Zulah grabbed Alyssa by the wrist and started to crush it. The knife Alyssa held in her hand fell to the floor as Raggy started firing stun bolts at her.

With Alyssa unconscious and restrained, and Krib stabilised, it became a priority to check if there where any more enemies remaining. Zulah and Raggy finished the sweep of the level and found another black clad enemy that had already been killed and five cryogenic tubes that were all empty. Boarding the station must have tripped the reanimation process...

Despite having accounted for all five occupants of the cryogenic chambers, Aaron gathered what remained of the team into a defensive position, unwilling to take the slightest chance that there could still be someone else loose on the station. The group remained huddled at one end of a corridor for almost 15 hours before the Hammer returned. It was a rather haggard and upset Aaron that met Kethan in the airlock, with a tale of grisly deeds...

Captain's Log:

<<37:5:19/NOV.DRA/CAP.LOG/>>

Why is it that things never turn out to be what they seem on the surface?

The abandoned space station should have been just that - abandoned. Empty. Devoid of life. All our scans said so. OK, so I guess I was expecting the odd booby trap, but I had selected the team to account for that.

Disabling a bomb is one thing, but what we couldn't have known was that the Imps had been using the station for some experiments in chemical enhancement of troopers. Half the total engineering team was wiped out, five good people lost, despite the best efforts of Aaron and his team. Worse yet, Alyssa was contaminated with this chemical agent and went on a rampage, an unknowing tool of the Empire. Is it always the way with the Emperor and his cronies, forcing people to kill against their will? Kribaczek was lucky to survive. Physically he is on the mend, but mentally? He's never been the most stable of the Nova Dragons, but this assault, not just on his body, but on the team he put together, may push him so far he might be out of reach. Time is a great healer, but you have to survive that time.

Alyssa also has inner demons to overcome. Despite the best efforts from Kal, and myself she seems hell bent on self-destruction. I know she has spoken to Aaron about this, and I have to respect that he has chosen to keep it in confidence, still I can't help wishing that I could help somehow. I've spoken with Syl and he's agreed to add Alyssa to his team in the short term. I hope the Force is with her, it's a lonely journey she is travelling, made more difficult by the fact that she has chosen to shut us out. Once she can come to terms with the fact that she cannot accept responsibility for actions carried out whilst contaminated by an alien substance, then perhaps she can make her peace with the rest of the Hammer's crew.

The exceptional circumstances of this mission notwithstanding, I was disappointed to receive Aaron's report that the chain of command broke down. The Nova Dragons have never been what might be called a conventional unit, but we've mostly managed to maintain a semblance of discipline. I think Aaron must also learn that conventional lines of authority won't always be appropriate in a group such as ours. The right to lead is earned not given; there are times when I fear that I still haven't earned that right, despite all we've been through together. Perhaps when I start to be assured of command that will be the time I have lost the right? Punishment has been meted out, we will move on. There's still the matter of moving our new prize to a safer location.

-Captain Kethan Falor

Acting XO's Log:

<<37:5:19/NOV.DRA/AXO.LOG/>>


Once again I find myself in awe of the Empire's vast capacity for evil. The away mission to the 'abandoned' station was nothing more than a slaughter, and although I can class the operation as a success, in my mind it can only be a failure, and most of the blame can only fall on me.

Things seemed to start slipping when our 'demolitions expert' took more time to disarm a simple trap than a small child with a vibro-scalpel would. Then discovering that our scanners were useless only after the Hammer had left seemed to add weight to my feelings that the mission was cursed.

We lost, through no incompetence of the team itself, all five of the engineers we brought with us, Alexi, Kat, Vedek, Elba and Chase, all of them were slain, some quite brutally by the genetically engineered leftovers of the Empire's science division. I cannot erase the scene in the power room where we found Raggy from my mind, nor the sick feeling in my stomach as I heard the knives thud into Kat and Chase. Our assailants were less than animals, driven insane by the cocktail of drugs the Empire had fed them since they were left on the station, were they willing servants of the Emperor? Or unwilling, like Ensign Diariat? The 'Nova Dragons' operate well as a team, and with the Captain in charge they are possibly even efficient, but they disobeyed several of my orders, and with something turning our own crewmates against us this could have resulted in more casualties than we actually took. I still shudder to think of Ensign Raggy or Ensign Zulah under the same influences as Ensign Diariat. I will give them the benefit of the doubt so far, their personal feelings overrode the common sense I know they all have, though their lack of respect for the chain of command may someday get us all killed. I will return to my duties a lesser man than before this mission, but my hatred for the Empire will only grow stronger.

-Lt Commander Aaron Barakumen