0401. Time is Out of Joint
From the desk of Lt. Commander Xana Bonviva, SD: 2419 [2.4] 0202:
Well we got back from the sun, sand, and fun of RISA including watching our CO, Ana, get promoted and married to find ourselves back on the PROPHECY heading out with new orders. However, our first set of orders for this new year involved us going back to some people we’ve met before—the Interstellar Concordium (ISC). The ISC is a Federation-like group in another dimension that like us, is made up of many species, and for all intent and purposes, seems to be dedicated to the ways of peace and exploration.
I said, “Seems to be” because to be honest, we weren’t 100% sure prior to this. Although previous meetings with them had gone very well, and they’ve come to our aid in the past, we knew surprisingly little about them. SF Command had decided that we should go and have a set of talks with them, nothing more. Once we got to their system, Capt. Spankryz, Lt. Williams, and Lt. jg Dacil met with Governor Ror’or (the head of the ISC) and her assistant, Counselor Len. I was to go with Dr. Gorman and Lt. jg O’Neil to meet with the Chief of Medical Services for ISC, Dr. Reund and the head of ISC Sciences, Commandant Minogu at UMPAQUA (one of the main worlds of the ISC). Finally our new 2nd officer, Lt. Halloran, was to go with Lt. jg Jones and Lt. jg Peri to the ISC PROSPECT, and meet with their CO, Commandant Brazos (for the sake of brevity I’ve eliminated her 30+ titles) to discuss tactical and engineering between our group and theirs.
Things went well, we discovered the ISC was quite like the Federation but with some differences. Dr. Gorman reported to us that with regards to medical science the ISC are behind us as they focus more on preventative medicine to the exclusion of other things. Additionally the ISC were discovering the problems with immune systems resistances and Dr. Gorman was happy to address with them what the Federation had done in the past. With regards to engineering, Jones discovered that the ISC are ahead of us. She reported that they were experimenting with a time-jumping engine but had put that on hold to start working on a d-drive. Peri also told us that the ISC are ahead of us with their superior tactical and are currently working on upgrading weapons.
At this point Governor Ror’or, the head of the ISC, invited us to a reception on GARGANGUA (one of the ISC planets) to a reception toasting our current success. We all went to the reception, and had a good time until a battle appeared to breakout and as is the case, all hell broke out. Most of us managed to make it back to the ship except for our Captain and Sec/Tac. And while we wanted to go back and get them, it appeared we were under attack from a Suliban ship. Now, to be honest, we had seen something odd on sensors earlier but we weren’t able to track it and with the ISC talks looming we didn’t investigate it. Now we were under attack by a ship far superior to our own but that was the least of our worries. Within moments a rift in space opened up and 2 allies of the Suliban showed up and also attacked us. However, a Federation ship we’ve never seen before, the USS CALLISTO, also came out of hiding and fought along side us as did 2 alternate versions of the PROPHECY (the HMS and ISS). Eilean Peri, who had been on the surface, managed to convince the ISC to fight along side us (not a hard thing to do since the ships were firing on GARGANGUA too) and she went with them on the ISC PROSPECT to fight along side us. Unfortunately for Ana, she was not faring quite as well. Although Kat Potter, a former crew member of ours who had gone off with the ephemeral and omniscient Trelane a while ago, came back for a visit and managed to scurry both Ana and the Governor of the ISC off out of danger, the Governor was attacked by a Suliban soldier. Although Kat nobly dispensed of the assassin, that still left the Governor seriously wounded and the ISC suspicious of Ana and Kat.
Suliban and allies appearing from no where; a Federation ship we didn’t know about that appeared more advanced than us; 2 versions of ourselves coming from nowhere…you think we’d seen it all. However, nothing prepared us for what happened next (I notice I write that sentence a lot in my logs). Another rift opened up in space and we were all (with the exception of the ISC ship) subject to Kir-kin-tha’s First Law of Metaphysics and Natural Dimensional Tear Copy Dispersal Effect both of which led us, the Suliban and their allies, and the alternate PROPHECIES around the universe like boomerangs; literally we bounced back into our own dimension before going back to the ISC dimension (I really don’t recommend space travel like this). Lt. jg O’Neil explained to us afterwards that the other ships didn’t make it back due to the heavy damage that they sustained during the space battle.
While we were negotiating for the return of Eilean and Ana, the USS CALLISTO left the area, just as mysteriously as it came. Although we were eager to track it, making extensive repairs to our ship, not to mention getting back our CO and Sec/Tac were key.
Due to our successful negotiations, the Meisans, a warrior matriarchal race that was one of the founders of the ISC, invited us back to their homeworld, NNARMA, for some celebrations. After all that we’ve gone through, I think we deserved it.
(End Log)