0203. Threat By Numbers
Due to an emergency situation which the details of were known only by a very select few members of Starfleet Admiralty, the USS PROPHECY was placed under the control of Admiral Konicki, Chief of Starfleet Intelligence. Admiral Aziz, Starfleet's Chief of Operations and Officer normally in charge of the PROPHECY's missions had been given little choice in the matter once the details of the threat against the Federation was made known to him.
Konicki's first order had been to either grant extended shore leave or Force transfers to nearly 2/3 of the crew. Following this, the crew's morale was severely shaken as the true reason for this had yet to be revealed, allowing for rumours to run rampant throughout the ship.
The most believable rumour had theorised that the PROPHECY would be jumping dimensions in order to find the core command elements of the Locusta Regime and once and for all deal a blow which would end their threat against all dimensions. Unbeknownst to the remaining crew of the PROPHECY, the reality of their mission would be far more terrifying.
In order to hide their true intent and destination, the PROPHECY performed something what had never been done before - multiple D-Jumps with only seconds separating each. Once buried into the layers separating the dimensions, the ship waited before making it's final jump - back to it's dimension of origin.
Before making this last jump, the remaining crew was finally informed of the true nature of their mission. For an unknown reason, Species 8472 had once again taken on the task of infiltrating Starfleet Command by replacing high ranking officials which placed the Federation and all of the worlds around in great peril.
With only a single such replacement confirmed, the task given to the crew of the PROPHECY had been to backtrack Admiral Mohammed's steps and find out more about this extent of this threat. This led the crew to GURKAN, a world outside of the Federation's sphere of influence where the Admiral had spent his last vacation.
The PROPHECY, hidden behind the third moon of this world, sent the majority of the Senior Staff to the planet via a civilian shuttle which they had on board. The away teams are presently attempting to infiltrate the domain of that world's highest ranking official where the Admiral had been known to spend a large amount of time.
Having split into four groups, the away team set forth to gather the necessary documents which would grant Commander Morningstar the title and rights of Chancellor. This having been figured to be the best way to gain access to Chancellor's Aurthuris' domain and learn more about Admiral Mohammed's whereabouts and possibly get some clues as to the extent of the infiltration of Species 8472 into Starfleet and the Federation.
During the gathering of these documents, Lieutenant Daisy Byrne crashed onto the planet and was rescued by the Commander's own team which consisted of his Chief Medical Officer, First Officer and himself. In order to avoid this new arrival from creating problems, Erik opted to have her stay with them while they proceeded.
Various problems were met in the obtaining of the documents, most notably an attempt to kidnap Ensign Sanchez, the PROPHECY's DCL which resulted in Lieutenant Gorman, the aCMO, suffering injuries to his arm.
On their side, the PROPHECY's Intel Operative and Counsellor, were busy gathering information and preparing the high Chancellor for his meeting with Commander Morningstar who had taken on the local name of Chancellor S'Tar.
During the initial part of their investigation, the undercover Officers, playing the role of head wives, discovered another Federation Officer having business dealings with the Chancellor. To Enaii's surprise and horror, that man had been no other than her own adoptive father, former Admiral Eli Hugo, a man who had been trialed, convicted and sent to the New Zealand penal colony.
As three of the teams regrouped, they encountered Lieutenant Commander Aspinall who had been sent by the Deputy of Starfleet Intelligence to extract another operative who failed to report to the designated pick-up point. It was later discovered that the agent had been killed by a member of Species 8472 which had been on the planet.
The three teams made their way to S'Tar's palace, which was newly bought. On the same night, some assassins hired by the same person responsible for attempting to kidnap Sanchez earlier, came to the palace to get rid of Gorman. The assassins possessed cloaking devices in the form of armbands that made them invisible. The away team successfully thwarted the assassin's plans, captured one of them and managed to obtain some of their cloaking devices.
On the next day, the away team went to Chancellor Authurtis' palace to attend a dinner, held in S'Tar's honour and planned to regroup with Rikar and Enaii. However, their plans for further investigation were cut short and the away team was forced to return back to the ship.
While the away team was busy with their activities, the remaining crew on the PROPHECY discovered an 8472 vessel, disguised as a Federation starship. The ship maintained silence as they monitored the other vessel.
After the away team returned back to the ship, the crew decided to follow the disguised 8472 vessel. To prevent 8472 from detecting the PROPHECY's presence, the crew decided to build a dimensional cloaking device, using the D-Drive and the devices obtained from the assassins. Unfortunately, the new cloaking device led to an explosion in Main Engineering and injured many crewmembers. The ship was forced out of warp in order to remain cloaked, thereby losing track of the other vessel. However, the crew managed to obtain coordinates of their destination, which led the ship to the LITHAN nebula.
Upon arrival at the nebula, the crew came upon an exact replica of the PROPHECY. They however did not detect the presence of an 8472 base in the nebula. The base was found to be a training ground for 8472 agents to adapt to humanoid lifeforms for the purposes of infiltrating the Federation.
An away team, comprising of Morningstar, Rikar, Gorman and Tal were dispatched to the other ship to find out how much information 8472 had gathered on the PROPHECY and its crew. They discovered a human Starfleet officer, Ensign Raycii Jones who apparently was picked up by the false PROPHECY, because of her shuttle's engine failure. They finally made their escape from the ship with her just before a dimensional vortex opened up in the nebula. The ‘real' PROPHECY barely managed to escape, before the vortex sucked up the entire nebula, taking with it, the other ship and the base.
During the mission, promotions were handed out and certain Reassignments were made. Commander Morningstar was promoted to Captain. Lt. Enaii and Lt. JG Jeffrey Gorman were promoted to Lt. Commander and full Lieutenant respectively. Lieutenant Gorman was also reassigned to the position of Chief Science Officer. Lieutenant Daisy Byrne and Ensign Raycii Jones were made the Assistant Chief Medical Officer and Chief Engineering Officer respectively, while Lt. Commander Peter Aspinall became Chief of Operations.
(end log)