NCC-1776 USS NOVA

SD 60711 to SD 61201

"Magna Roma" and "Cloaking Device"

Senior Staff

Commodore Calvin A. DiFalco
Commander Alexander "Sasha" Chizh
LtCmdr Alium von Ail
LtCmdr Daniel Laramie
Esn Benjamin Kearney
Esn. Christof Fife
Lt. Careth Broll

Summary

After repairs and shore leave for the crew, the Nova is assigned a new mission. The ship is to approach and observe Magna Roma to decide if the planetary development allows for an application for Federation Membership. Observations from probes preceeding the mission indicated the possibility of another power trying to get involved with the planet, it is suspected it might be the Romulan Empire.

On their way to Magna Roma an emergency call from the Head of Starfleet Intelligence reaches the ship. A device, previously installed on the Nova, but secretly removed when the ship was recovered from it's hiatus in orbit of the planet of the Guardian of Forever, has been stolen by a professional team of spies working for the Romulans. Unknown to everyone but the Admirals it is an engine shielding device that also provides nearly perfect cloaking capabilites, technology prohibited to the Federation by the treaty of Algeron. Should it fall into the hands of the Romulans, a war would not be avoidable.

Fortunately a first hint by SFIA leads to the Diamondback, a ship registerd on Betazed. After boarding it under the cover of a medical inspection, Captain Chared attracts suspicion and the device is found in his quarters, but quickly revealed to be a fake. It is decided to send the ship to Magna Roma with the original mission, conducted by breveted Captain Chizh, while a small away team, consisting of the Captain, his bodyguard, the doctor and the second officer would go after the device to either destroy or retrive it.

Cloaking Device

In the runabout Pattijoki, surgically altered to look like Romulans, the away teams heads for the Neutral Zone, posing as Tal'Shiar agents fleeing from the Federation to Romulan territory. Following the warp signature of a freighter that crossed the course of the Diamondback and then headed for the zone, they get to Rilok, a small center of trade and spaceflight in the Neutral Zone.

They manage to pass the security check and get into a discussion with port workers. After some talk they get informations about the ship they are following and it's crew. After leaving the scene to organise support, the Captain's companion, Daniel Laramie kills the workers in an outbreak of insanity, triggered by the alterations in his body done on his home world, a problem that is haunting him throughout his entire life and threatens him increasingly. The deed goes unnoticed by the others and the authorities and they manage to follow the ship the spies travel with. After some hours they discover a tracking device has been placed on the hull of their ship. When they stop to remove it, it explodes and damages the warp drive. To complete their troubles a warbird decloaks in front of them.

When the Romulans beam aboard the Captain's bodyguard reveals herself as Major of the Tal'Shiar and has them arrested and the runabout taken aboard the warbird. While Laramie and von Ail plan to escape, the ship flies to an unknown planet and the crew reveals itself as allies, Shen from a secret base in the Neutral Zone, observing the Empire and Federation. Admiral Hrunn, the commandant, agrees to lend them a cloakable assault shuttle to continue their mission under the condition they will never reveal their knowledge about the base. To insure that, Captain DiFalco drugs Laramie and von Ail when they take off from the warbird, heading after the spies again.

Very soon it becomes clear that their next destination will allow them to secretly vanish into Romulan Space. A risky manouver is agreed on and the away team's shuttle approaches the larger freighter cloaked. Laramie is beamed over during the approach to the space station and manages to steal the original device in an unguarded moment. Running from the alerted enemy ship, the shuttle is damaged by disruptor fire and only the Shen warbird can save them, destroying the enemy ship. The away team returns to their runabout and heads back for the Nova at Magna Roma, the device saved.

Magna Roma

Under the command of breveted Captain Chizh the Nova approaches the Magna Roma system. After a briefing in the setting of a ukrainian steam bath on the holodeck, the insertion of two away teams consisting of Nova staff members and the mission specialists from the Vulcan Academy of Science is prepared. There are hints that the Nova is not the only ship in the system and that SFIA might have messed up a secret mission there, causing the president of the Federation to extend ambassadorial authority to Chizh to prevent the planet from falling into possibly enemy hands. A history simulation points into the direction of a century long outside influence to maintain an artificial political stability that is about to collapse under the pressure of a radical fraction of the brothers of the sun, the planetary religious opposition.

Soon after inserting the away teams it becomes obvious that the vulcans are not what they seem to be, the officers are arrested and held hostage. The political situation becomes more and more critical as a car bomb turns a public ceremony into a massacre, martial law is called out. The planetary leader contacts the Nova and offers negotiations about Federation membership. It becomes evident that he knows much more than he is supposed to know and it is slowly revealed that the power behind the throne is losing control of the situation.

Implicitly using the arrested officers as hostages, the Magna Roman proconsul tries to talk Chizh into extending provisional Federation membership to stabilize his position, but Chizh procrastinates. With the return of the cloaking device away team the Nova manages to locate and extract the captured crewmembers and it is decided to leave the planet to find to it's own stable political situation. Chizh is offered the command of the Alexander Nevsky and accepts. He returns to Earth and reports the mission findings to the President of the Federation. It is decided to have the USS Regent investigate further into the activities of the unknown manipulators.