Badlands Mission

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Synopsis of the Badlands Mission

As part of a covert surveillance program decades ago, the Federation had deployed a dozen probes in the Badlands. Advances in technology rendered the probes obsolete and age rendered them inoperable, yet they still had sensitive, classified material aboard. Therefore, on stardate 51104.11, the elite special operations ship, USS Manticore, departed Maturin Station tasked with cleaning up the garbage the Federation left behind.

The Federation probes were security-enabled devices and their defenses are accessible only by line-of-sight transmission. Manticore had to navigate to each probe’s last recorded coordinates, find the probe, get close enough to transmit the disable signal, then destroy the probe. Because of the need for pinpoint accuracy, two fighters, the Wyvern and Griffin, were dispatched each time to do just this.

While attempting to disable the tenth probe, the bio-armor nutrient feed on the Griffin shorted out, creating a feedback loop in their electrical system. Powerless and helpless, they bounced uncontrolled, through streams and eddies, struggling to stay alive. Manticore had lost contact, Wyvern was dispatched to their last known coordinates, and Griffin was retrieved.

With Griffin out of commission, Wyvern was dispatched to disable and destroy the final three probes. As they were disabling the last probe, a terrible series of events led to a massive explosion that seemed to destroy both the probe and the Wyvern. Struggling with the loss, Manticore finished the mission and headed out of the Badlands, not realizing that the Wyvern was severely damaged, but her crew was still alive, both stuck in a starless void of null space.

Meanwhile, Wyvern’s crew used phaser fire and communications signals in an attempt to leave null space. Manticore detected the artificial energy and changed course, hoping to find the Wyvern’s and its crew, still alive. But Wyvern was still in null space and Manticore was unable to find them.

In a last attempt to locate the fighter, Manticore fired a tethered probe at the coordinates of the detected energy signals. The probe disappeared from real space and appeared in Wyvern’s null space, where Wyvern’s oxygen-starved, exhausted crew tried to figure out where it came from and what how they could use it to free themselves.

Having no results from the probe, Manticore sent a specialized shuttle, Chimera, into that area of space. As Chimera entered null space, Wyvern ripped open, spilling the four Wyvern EVA-clad crew members into space. With fifty minutes of air left, they clung to wreckage until Chimera sent two tethered probes. Wyvern’s crew crawled into the probes, Chimera pulled them aboard, and all exited null space and docked with Manticore.

Admiral Atragon has decided that despite their cover as a tug-boat, Manticore would never again become the Federation’s garbage scow, especially in the Badlands.