EPISODE  3a "The Heart of Kaha"
STARDATE 2301.08

    Stardate 2301.08: The Essex once again rendezvous with Starbase Two to re-supply and pick up crew replacements.  During the layover, Captain Curp meets with Commodore Shea, senior officer on Starbase Two, Security Chief Leone, and Commander Bottoms, Section Head of the Klingon Sector Intelligence  stationed out of Starbase 23. The meeting involves the recruitment of Chief Leone and two more Essex crewmen for a special covert operation.
    On Stardate 2212.27, Kavet Tor, an operative inside the Klingon Empire was to join up with a Federation scout vessel near Outpost One. Tor managed to retrieve sensitive information about Klingon fleet movements deep within the Klingon Empire, and sought to rely them to Star Fleet before he vanished.  Contacts reported Tor’s warp shuttle passing near Turnstile, an Orion free trade center within the Triangle. Since his last reported position, no contact has been made. Star Fleet cannot mount a full search in neutral territory without arousing suspicion, so Star Fleet Intelligence wants a small group to investigate the area and determine the whereabouts of Tor and his ship. Leone's group mission will be to cross in the Triangle posing as merchants/black marketers, working the trade route between Turnstile and the surrounding free trade worlds and recover the data acquired by Tor. Star Fleet Intelligence will provide the ship, supplies and appropriate cover identities for the group.
    On the pretense of delivering medical supplies, the Essex will deposit Leone's team on Federation Outpost One, where they will acquire their ship and equipment. From there, the Essex will quickly proceed on its normal patrol route near the Klingon Neutral Zone, as not to arouse any suspicion by Klingon long range sensing devices. In thirty days time, the Essex will return to the area and recover the operatives.
    From the outpost, the team will enter the trade lanes at Precipice , a small trade world in the Brightstar system just inside the Federation Border. From there, the group should easily be able to enter the Triangle will impunity. Leone's team will pose as merchants who have a load of rare woven carpets and rugs from within the Federation interior, looking for a lucrative exchange on Freeloader , the trade center of Turnstile .
    Tor’s last known position places his warp shuttle between Turnstile and the Klingon Border . Star Fleet believes that if Tor had some sort of difficulty reaching the border, he may have tried to reach the Turnstile interior, where he could easily evade any pursuit on one of the trade worlds.
    With the briefing over, Leone, Flonaise and McGillicutty ( under the names C.E. Wood, Propecia Xenecar, and Nelson Vonagut ) prepare for their mission. Deposited on Federation Outpost One, the team departed in their Chameleon class scout, christened the SS Lego, and headed for Precipice. A brief respite at Precipice turned into a night in detention for Chief Leone when a misunderstanding turned into a bar room brawl. Prison not withstanding, the three departed Precipice for the Triangle.
   On a hunch, Leone decided to make way for the planet Workday, an Orion industrial and mining world within Turnstile, it being the closest planet to Kavet Tor's last known position. There they made acquaintance with Deak Lifaq, a loud, stout, bald, cigar chewing man, planetary manager of Workday and head of the Lifaq Corporation. Their initial encounter landed the group captured while Lifaq checked their identities. Once his paranoia subsided, Lifaq showered the three with lavish hospitality at one of Lifaq's ocean side resorts. Under more relaxed conditions, Lifaq agreed to help them with Tor however he could in exchange for a copy of whatever Tor was offering the Federation. Surprisingly, Leone agreed. Pleased, Lifaq went on his fact finding mission.
    Kavet Tor has been an operative for the Federation for quite some time, passing as an independent asteroid miner and prospector. Tor has managed to set up quite a network of operatives that help him pass along information into the Federation. Over the past several years, he's made contacts within the Imperial Klingon States , who have been passing along sensitive information through their own contacts within the Klingon Empire. Tor realized that the information was far too delicate to relay through his normal network and decided it best to deliver the plans himself. After acquiring the data on Lanroche VIII , Tor arranged for a rendezvous with the USS Sager, a Nelson Class scout stationed out of Federation Outpost One. Suspecting that the Klingons knew of the missing plans, he decided to circumvent Turnstile, believing Klingon Intelligence would be expecting him there. The area contact was lost with Tor falls between Workday  and Kannaga , a Klingon colony and outpost just within the interior.
    Armed with this data, the crew of the Lego set out the investigate that space between Workday  and Kannaga, in hopes of detecting residue from his Koreba class warp shuttle. Systematically scanning open space, the crew hoped for a break that would lead them to their quarry. Instead, they fell into the flight path of three Klingon cruisers, led by the IKV Fang, returning to Kannaga. The SS Lego was boarded and Leone, Flonaise, and McGillicutty became prisoners of the Klingon Empire.
    The three were brought before Captain Kliga in the interrogation room, where the agonizer chamber awaited them. Kliga immediately revealed to them that he knew their real identities, much to their surprise, and would spare them the indignity of attempting to use their false identities given to them, not that it would matter much once inside the booth. To Kliga's surprise, Leone dispensed with a abbreviated version of their mission to find Kavet Tor, although he omitted the exact nature of the reason why they needed to find him. At that point, Kliga had the group returned to the detention area, with a seeming disinterest in any further questioning.
    While escorted back to their cells, they noticed that one of the cells was occupied by Kavet Tor himself. Waiting for an opportunity to escape came when a guard sent with a food tray left himself susceptible to attack, which Leone and McGillicutty immediately took advantage of. They managed to dispatch the other two guards who came in to subdue the escape attempt. Free and armed, they released Kavet Tor and the remaining members of his crew.   Together, the ensemble  managed to reach and secure the auxiliary control room located at the base of the boom section of the ship. From there, they took over bridge controls, security protocols, and engine power. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't disable enough of the crew to safely reach the shuttle bay where the SS Lego was stored. In fact, even if they could reach the ship, there was no way the Lego could successfully escape from the Fang, which seemed to have been left behind by its escort.    With klingons forcing the door of the auxiliary control room, Leone, McGillicutty, and Flonaise come up with a risky plan. McGillicutty will initiate the emergency boom separation which would slow the ship to impulse power, effectively disabling it. Meanwhile, Flonaise will try to keep the boom section from colliding with the main hull due to the momentum while the rest of the group beams over directly to the Lego. The emergency separation worked beautifully, but Flonaise couldn't keep control of the boom section. The main hull continued forward under impulse power, ramming the boom section in its path. She struggled to maintain control long enough for the group to beam out. McGillicutty just barely managed to get her out before the boom section got crushed.
    One of Kavet Tor's men managed to open the hangar bay doors manually to let the Lego launch. Although a small contingent of the Fang's crew managed to make their way into the hangar, their hand disruptors weren't enough to stop them from leaving the bay.
    Leaving the Fang behind them aflame, the crew of the Lego proceeded to recover the plans from Kavet Tor's shuttle wreckage.

  Stardate 2301.20: The crew of the SS Lego are in hot pursuit by Klingon warships after crippling the IKV Fang near the Klingon outpost of Kannaga. Their sensors pick up several contacts on long range sensors, approaching at speeds in excess of Warp 8. Through skill and a little luck (mostly luck) the Lego manages to stay ahead of the pursuers. Kavet Tor directs the crew to the small planet where his warp shuttle crashed landed.
    During the voyage, Kavet Tor recounts how this incident all began: He had been an operative for the Federation for quite some time, passing as an independent asteroid miner and prospector. Over the years, Tor has managed to set up a network of operatives that help him acquire secrets to relay to the Federation.  Being a human fusion klingon gave him a unique advantage working amongst other klingon nationals, including those of the Imperial Klingon States, who've been passing along sensitive information through their contacts within the empire. It's here that Tor acquired "The Heart of Kaha" plans, one of the more closely guarded secrets in the Empire, for which they will go to great lengths to keep keep it that way. Tor realized that the information was far too sensitive and too delicate to send along the normal channels, so he decided to deliver the plans himself. After acquiring the data on Larroche VIII, he arranged for a rendezvous with the USS Sager, a Nelson class scout stationed out of Federation Outpost One. Suspecting that the Klingons knew of the missing plans and were trailing its path through his network of operatives, he decided to circumvent the heavily populated Turnstile, hoping Klingon Intelligence would waste time in searching for him there. Fate intervened however, when a warp core malfunction forced his shuttle to crash land on some uncharted planet several warp days out of Workday. His crew was captured by a landing party sent by the IKV Fang, which happened to be patrolling in the area and detected the warp core mishap. There he languished, beaten and tortured until the crew of the Lego arrived.
    The planet lies only a few parsecs from Kannaga, in a relatively unremarkable area of space. The giant type M red star has 6 planets orbiting it. Only one turns out to be class M, though just barely. The target planet  where Kavet Tor crashed his ship has a harsh desert climate with only sparse areas of vegetation and free standing water. A quick surface scan of the planet  reveals the radiation leakage from the engine section of the damaged warp shuttle.  Leone orders Flonaise to land their scout ship near the crash site. The harsh conditions proved to be too much for the andorian helmsman, and the SS Lego is forced to crash land onto the planet as well. The force of the landing severely damages the hull of the Chameleon class scout, and despite attempts from engineer McGillicutty, the SS Lego would never leave the surface under its own power.
    Stranded on a desert planet, and the Klingons only 14 hours away, the crew of the Lego needed to devise some kind of escape plan. Engineer McGillicutty believed he could use the undamaged warp core from the SS Lego on Kavet Tor's  warp shuttle provided that there's enough time to dismantle and reassemble it. Their major obstacle is transporting the 3000 kg core the 5 kilometers to the shuttle wreckage. Tor suggested that it may be possible to fly the damaged shuttle over to the Lego while the engineer begins disassembling the warp core from the Lego's drive. Leone, Flonaise, Tor, and a handful of Tor's men set out to the warp shuttle.
    The party made its way through the sandstorms to discover the Koreba class warp shuttle, entrenched in the sand at a thirty degree angle. The group found their way into the shuttle through an exposed air hatch, and slowly began to make their way through the ship. Kavet Tor had the plans with him at the time of the crash, but, had hidden them in the engineering section where the radiation levels would prevent them from being easily found. The ship had obviously been ransacked by the Klingons, with loose parts of the ship broken and scattered throughout. There lie also the remains of several members of Tor's crew that didn't survive either the crash or the Klingons... Kavet had some of his men remove the fallen comrades.
    The engine room was just as disheveled as the rest of the ship, a result of the Klingon search party. Kavet Tor remembers that he lodged the disk between some control panels where it wouldn't be found, but, in his haste, he had forgotten where. The crew began to search through the room for the disks. Just as Chief Leone discovers the disk, their search is interrupted by the distinguishable sound of disruptor rifles charging up. From behind them, a group of Orion pirates had stumbled upon the shuttle and have the searchers as hostages. One of the Orions notice the disk and try to retrieve it from Leone. Just then, one of Kavet's crewmen tries to jump one of the Orions, prompting the rest of the group draw their weapons and duck for cover. A fierce fire fight ensues, and despite some close calls, the landing party are victorious over the Orions. They quickly clean up their mess and begin to set up the vessel for take off.
    With time quickly passing, the crew aboard the warp shuttle manage to raise the vessel above the sand with its maneuvering thrusters and begin the trip back to the Lego. Meanwhile, back on the Lego, McGillicutty removes the warp core and coil out of the crippled ship awaiting for the shuttle's arrival. Lumbering across the horizon, the shuttle slowly approached and touched down next to the Lego.  Quickly, work began to move the core into place, still unsure whether or the not the drive can be adapted to the Klingon support systems. The feverish work was completed with a couple of hours to spare until the Klingon support fleet arrived.
    Knowing the shuttle couldn't possibly outrun the pursuit ships whether the drive worked or not, the group hatched a plan that might buy them some time. Kavet and his men moved the bodies of the Orions and the crewmen into the Lego. McGillicutty quickly rigged the impulse drive on the Lego to explode after the warp shuttle had taken off. The shuttle would use the use the sensor shadow of the planet to break orbit and impulse into the nearby asteroid belt and await the Klingon fleet. Hopefully, the Klingons would be duped into believing that the Lego had been destroyed with all hands aboard.
    Successfully lifting off the planet, the crew watch as the Lego creates a rather large crater in the wake of its demise. The shuttle passed successfully  into the asteroid belt and patiently waited for the Klingons to arrive. Powered down and silent, the crew watched as the image of a D-10 and its escort of D-7's entered the system and settled into orbit around the planet. The long hours seemed like an eternity until the ships finally re-grouped and left the system. The crew breathed a great sigh of relief. They waited for a time until they were certain the Klingons were gone for good, and left the asteroid belt. Traveling at full impulse power for several days so as not to give away their position to the Klingon's long range sensors, the crew set out for Federation space and home.

Stardate 2302.08:Supplemental:  The warpshuttle, newly christened SS Lego II, entered the Brightstar system as planned, only to find the area heavily patrolled by Federation ships. Patrol groups of destroyers escorted by cutters heave commercial vessels to, performing inspections. A quick scan of the system determined that the Essex was not among the vessels in the area. A moment of dread chilled the crew.  With the secrecy of their mission, would they mistakenly be taken as hostiles? From around one of the outer gas giants, the USS Paris, a Loknar class frigate, began an intercept approach to the Lego II. Ordered to land inside the Paris' docking bay, the crew of the Lego II was pleasantly relieved to find Commander Bottoms on the platform. She informed them of the Essex's delay(see episodes 3b and 4), and the increase of the military activity in light of the destruction of the Fang. She anxiously awaited the report of the operatives' escapades...