You place the man who called himself Harven Zax under arrest. Under Teal’c’s stony stare, he wilts and starts talking. He’s an actor, hired to play Harven Zax so the real one (aka Milo) could travel unnoticed. Somewhere along the way, he saw an opportunity to be paid twice. He sabotaged the cruiser’s engines, tipped off the mercs, and set loose the crawler that crippled the Enterprise, all for a Klingon House desperate to get its hands on the real Zax. The real Zax carries proof that the House made a secret pact with the Romulans. And if that ever comes out, it means war.
As the Starfleet team leads him towards the gate, he stops and turns back to you for some parting words: “All the world’s a stage. I, it seems, was miscast.”
Milo steps forward. He thanks you for keeping him alive, even before you knew who he was. “If you ever need information, Captain,”he says, “don’t hesitate to ask.” Lucinda says nothing, but she gives a nod, which from her is practically a speech. The two of them follow the Starfleet team through the gate along with the two captured agents.
Robespierre is the last to go. He shakes Kirk’s hand. “Adequately handled, Captain.”
“High praise,”says Kirk.
Robespierre steps through, and the gate shuts down behind him.
You return to the ship with one more decision to make. Algernon and Mira came aboard as prisoners, but when the crawler crippled the Enterprise, they stood with you and the rest of the crew. They’ve been in guest quarters ever since. Fraiser’s med report on them is brief: “Algernon has a cracked rib he never mentioned. And Mira tried to bite me.”
What do you do with them?
A) Hand them over to Starfleet to face punishment. It’s by-the-book and keeps your record clean, but it’s a poor way to thank someone who saved you.
B) Drop them at a neutral port. Mercs who owe Kirk a favor could come in handy someday, or come back to haunt you.
C) Invite them to join the crew. Their ship is gone and they’ve proven themselves in a fight, but their pasts are “colorful”.
Choose!
Previously On Amalgaverse…
You and 19 others have been stranded in an amalgam universe of myriad SF realities. All 19 are sci-fi’s Best of the Best. And then there’s you, uniquely qualified given your encyclopedic knowledge garnered from your world where these characters, their technologies, and their stories are fiction, beloved t.v. shows you have watched time and again. Together, all 20 of you have set off on the Enterprise-D, tasked with finding a way home. On its first mission, the crew answered a distress call from a dead ship and found it was far from empty. Aboard, the away team awoke an android named Maia, discovered a “survivor” named Rhea who turned out to be something else entirely, and fought their way off as scavengers closed in. They came home to the Enterprise with two things: a new crewmember in Maia, and a fragment of the signature an entity left behind when it crossed into this reality. Colonel Carter believes it’s one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that the rest of it is still out there waiting.
For your second mission, you have elected to follow a Starfleet directive, traveling to pick up and transport Harven Zax, a dangerous intelligence broker, to a rendezvous point at the edge of the Expanse. Upon arrival, you discover his cruiser inoperable, drifting towards a black hole, the ship’s automated defense systems preventing Scotty from using the Enterprise’s transporter to simply beam them aboard.
O’Neill and Data take the jumper to the cruiser where they encounter four stranded passengers: the annoyingly flamboyant Harven Zax, his silent bodyguard Lucinda Shockley, his mild-mannered protege Milo, a Starfleet official named Robespierre, and the ship’s utility bot, Dunsel. Everyone piles into the jumper and launch, only to be caught by the black hole’s gravitational pull. The Enterprise uses its tractor in an attempt to reel in the jumper while, on the bridge, the crew must decide what to do about the two life signs in the mercenary shuttle headed for the event horizon.
The Enterprise escapes the black hole’s gravitational pull by using the deflector array to project a counter-field ahead of the ship and then jumping to warp.
You set off for the rendezvous point and your guests settle in: no-nonsense Lucinda, meek Milo, officious Robespierre and, of course, the bombastic Harven Zax.
While Data works on repairing Dunsel the robot, you check in on the mercenaries you beamed off the doomed shuttle headed towards the black hole’s event horizon. They offer to talk in exchange for their freedom. Instead, you have Garak chat with the alien mercenary, Algernon. In his own incomparable fashion, the simple Cardassian tailor convinces the merc to talk and reveal he and his partner were in the employ of a Klingon Great House who want Harven Zax for a secret he carries. Algernon also reveals that he and Mira were given coordinates to the damaged cruiser transporting Zax. But Garak finds this mysterious. The cruisers engines failed without warning. So how did anyone know where to find it?
Suddenly, the Enterprise shudders and slows. Data reveals the ship’s nacelles are encrusted with glittering green growth that turns out to be a subspace organism that feeds on warp fields. Everyone retreats to a shielded section of the ship as a baryon sweep clears the organisms, then the crew directs focus to their passengers, engaging them in conversation to learn more about their mission. Harven Zax simply talks about himself while Robespierre laments the fact he has been passed over for promotion three times. Milo demonstrates impressive understanding of the Ancients in his conversation with Daniel Jackson, and Aeryn Sun identifies Lucinda as a fellow ex-military. But the most notable piece of information comes from Dunsel who, it turns out, had his memory stores deleted after discovering that someone had sabotaged the cruiser, forcing the ship out of warp and into the hands of the waiting mercs. One of their passengers is a mole, and the crew must decide how to proceed.
The crew attempts to lure the mole into a trap by revealing they will successfully restore Dunsel’s memory stores by morning. But, rather than taking the bait, the mole springs their own trap. The Enterprise drops out of warp and goes dark. A beacon onboard the ship is broadcasting their position and a mysterious vessel fast-approaches dropping out of warp and hovering over the Enterprise.
Armored strike teams are beamed down the Enterprise. The crew is split into four person teams to meet them.
Kirk leads a team to Engineering where they discover an automated device that was used to disrupt the Enterprise. Once turned off, power is restored. As Kirk and co. head out, they are pinned down by enemy fire. Things look grim until – rescue comes from an unexpected source: Maia the android, Algernon and Mira the mercs, and little Dunsel.
Data and Rommie hack into the strike teams’ comms and direct them to the guest deck where they expect to find Harven Zax. Instead, they find Odo impersonating Zax – and then a horrific alien creature. Before they can react, our crew turns the tables on them and ends their threat. Their transport cruiser, meanwhile, attempts to make good its escape – only to be destroyed by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that then redirects its weapons to the Enterprise. It’s commander, Kordath, demands the Enterprise hand over Harven Zax.
Councilor Robespierre is enlisted to argue jurisprudence with the Kordath who grudgingly offers up a warrant for Zax’s arrest. Robespierre informs him it may take a full day to run this by Starfleet Command. Kordath gives him four hours.
With time to kill, focus shifts to the mole in their midst. Kirk gathers the four suspect passengers and informs them that one of them was responsible for sabotaging their cruiser. Four suspects – four different reactions. Harven Zax is indignant and makes himself the victim. Robespierre is outraged by the accusation. Milo seems visibly distressed while Lucinda is as inscrutable as ever. They each offer up their whereabouts on the night the cruiser was sabotaged. Harven Zax says he was with Lucinda, and his trusty bodyguard corroborates his account. Robespierre was in his room, working on “none of your business” while Milo was also alone in his room and apologizes for not being able to provide an alibi.
Just then, Data reports that the High Council never approved a warrant for Harven Zax’s arrest. The forgery Kordath provided was a forgery. Kirk contacts Kordath and makes him aware that he knows the warrant was a forgery, leading the Klingon to back off for fear that word of this dishonorable conduct will be revealed.
Kirk is then summoned to the science lab where Carter and Data have recovered some video more Diunsel’s memory stories, a snippet of surveillance video from the night of the cruiser’s sabotage that shows Lucinda visiting Milo in the dead of night, proving she lied when she claimed she’d been in Harven Zax’s room that night. Rather than reveal this information to their guests, the crew elects to keep it under wraps and prepare an away team to escort them to their rendezvous point: a Stargate on P3X-461.
As you prepare to beam down to the planet, a late-arriving background check on your guests arrives from Starfleet. You learn that Robespierre’s record with Starfleet is spotty, Harven Dax is famously publicity-shy and no one has ever captured his image, Lucinda is ex-military with underworld connections, while Starlet was unable to find any information on Milo. It’s as if he doesn’t exist.
You beam down to the planet where a group in Starfleet uniform await at the sSargate, the puddle already active. They request Harven Zax. They’re in a hurry. But Robespierre lets Kirk know that they failed to provide a passcode to identify themselves. When they’re prompted for it, they respond by going for their weapons. A firefight ensues during which the agents attempt to grab the faux Harven Zax, only for him to point them in Milo’s direction. One agent moves against Milo, and is instantly dropped by Lucinda.
The remaining agents flee through the outgoing wormhole. The faux Harven Zax attempts to join them, racing up the stairs and hurling himself at the puddle – just as the gate turns off. The big man flies through the ring and lands face-first in the mud and moss.
With the identity of the mole finally revealed, Kirk asks you to make the arrest.
Get caught up on our series, crew, and past missions at the AMALGAVERSE site.
Leave a Reply