0201. Nothing But Distant Memories
During a standard dimension exploration jump, something happened which sent the PROPHECY over 72000 years into the future. After a great deal of work to figure out what happened, the crew had to accept the fact that they had no idea as to what had happened nor how to reverse it and return the PROPHECY to its rightful time.
Before the crew could continue their efforts, the ship fell in the middle of a battle large. Following the end of the fight, the winning race, the Mintolan, accused the PROPHECY of trespassing. After some fancy diplomatic maneuvers, the PROPHECY was escorted to neutral space, outside of the Mintolan's sphere of influence.
The PROPHECY then encountered the Sikelan, a very friendly race who invited the crew to their water world planet, SIKELAN PRIME. Anaqueen, Mira and Sabrina accepted the invitation on behalf of the crew and hoped to make a positive first contact with this race which appeared all too willing to help.
The Sikelan showed the away team their ability to transmute energy into matter and to give form to thoughts. These techniques were later used to show the away team about the conflict between the Quailaf and Mintolan in the nearby asteroid belt. The conflict which they had arrived in the middle of.
Without any warning, the Mintolans sent two ships against the PROPHECY, forcing it down into the ocean of SIKELA PRIME. Do to the strict rules of non interference of the Sikelans, they were unable to help. This forced Anaqueen, Sabrina and Mira to try to use the little they had seen and learned of the Sikelan's technology in order to assist their ship. Having seen that their efforts had not been met with any success, Shelif, the Sikelan second highest ruling member of the planet, secretly helped the away team to contact their ship. With the assistance of the away team which provided tactical information on the battle, the PROPHECY destroyed one of the two attacking ships. In order to gain more time to prepare to deal with the remain vessel, the PLATO was sent out as a diversion.
With little effort, the Mintolan vessel captured the shuttle, thus shifting the battle to a more delicate situation. Using knowledge which Enaii had reluctantly provided, the Mintolan vessel was disabled. This allowed the alien crew and shuttle to be beamed into Cargobay 1. After having sent a medical team to assist both the pilot of the shuttle and the Mintolans, the alien crew turned against the PROPHECY's crew and took hostages.
Being the race that they are, the Mintolans accepted an offer to play a game in order to resolve the situation. Thinking that they would have the full advantage, the game suggested by the PROPHECY's crew had been a simple game of ice hockey. Unfortunately, the Mintolans requested modifications be made to the game if they were to play it. Some of these modifications included sharpened metallic sticks and battles to the death to resolve penalties. Following the requested changes to the game, the Sikelans were called in to suggest a more neutral game. Aquaball was offered as a more suitable and less dangerous alternative. With little choice, the crew accepted and prepared to practice this strange version of this three dimensional underwater soccer.
While the senior staff practiced this aquaball, Enaii took a shuttle and explored an area of the planet where children were kept in isolation. By the way she had traveled there and searched specific structures, it was clearly established that the Intel operative had been here before - but how and why? When she returned to the PROPHECY, Enaii was accompanied by a 2 years old girl named Talia - which the crew later learned was her daughter.
Seeing the crew of the PROPHECY performing far better than they had expected in their practice of the aquaball, the Mintolans planned to sabotage one of the masks used by the members of the crew. During the next practice, Cleo Tal's mask failed causing the PROPHECY's Chief of Security to almost drown.
The rules being very specific, the game had to be played by the exact number of players. This forced the crew of the PROPHECY to either forfeit the game or rush to train another player.
During all that time, Shioban Jaxam, the ship's CMO, had been working on trying to find a Mintolan weakness which they could exploit - finally she discovered that the internal earring of these aliens was particularly sensitive to ultra low frequencies. With this new information, Erik authorised a rescue plan nw that they possessed something which would give them an advantage.
In order to divert the attention of the Mintolans on board the PROPHECY away from the activities of the rescuers, Anaqueen, Mira and Sabrina took part in a large council meeting where all of the races of this region of space were present. It was hoped that a diversion would keep the Mintolans from discovering what the crew of the PROPHECY were up to.
Playing a hunch, Mira sent an open accusation in Council against the Mintolans, claiming that they had the habit of laying claim to anything and everything they saw. To everyone's surprise, one of the major races present supported this claim. The true surprise came when the origin of this race came to light - the Iconians, a race thought extinct for several hundred millennia.
As the Council debate heated up, the rescue plan moved forward and the hostages were rescued. Unfortunately, the diversion proved too be far more effective than anticipated and lead the Mintolans to withdraw from the council and literally declare war on all races who had opposed them.
The PROPHECY rapidly fell pray to repeated attacks and in order to save the neutral Sikelan, the ship was taken out of the underwater city and planet's ocean. Greatly outnumbered, the PROPHECY was pounded by several ships before three Iconian vessels came to their rescue. Following a single shot which destroyed three attackers, the Mintolan vessels and their supporters hastily withdrew.
Before Erik could even thank the Iconians for their rescue, the PROPHECY was hurled back 72000 years in the past, back to it's original time. With the computer memory erased and the crew's own memories blurred, the crew believed that their initial jump had simply failed, pushing them forward in time a mere 4.2 seconds.
With the hopes of finding what had gone wrong, the PROPHECY returned home - utterly puzzled by the unexplained appearance of Enaii's daughter whom the Intel Operative recognized but I had been unable to recall where she had come from.
(end log)