Adventure Source: Home Brew

Meetup Link: https://www.meetup.com/Star-Trek-Gaming/events/282311716/ NOTE: The description of the event is actually for the next event. This adventure was a last minute substitution and Meetup won’t let me edit a past event.

Game Date: December 19 2021

Session Post: No Session Post

Teaser: The star goalie for the Klingon ‘apuStoQ (Hawks) hockey team has gone missing the day before the playoff game against the Andor Atomics on Narendra Station. Things on the station are already tense and this certainly doesn’t help.

• Cmd. O’Nnyah (Raven)
• Lt Cmd. Taemin Rahn (Garrett)
• Lt. Kirkuurzhaav th’Zoarhi (Trevor)
• Ensign Wolfgang Ratzel (Terry)
• Dok – Acting Chief Engineer (Kelly)

Important NPCs:

• Ch’ty Shon – star goalie for the ‘apuStoQ
• Krethom G’ork – Captain of the ‘apuStoQ
• Zheoren “Zheo” th’Fluery – Captain of the Atomics
• Captain Pja Takenka – Orion Ship Captain

Notable Information: Captain Pja Takenka was first encountered in the Fading Suns adventure. It takes place shortly before the Klingons leave the Khitomer Accords. Star Fleet is aware of the possibility of Changling infiltrations and has just started implementing testing.

Mission Recap: The Kimura and the other ships assigned to Narendra station are undergoing repairs. Several of the crew are just finishing up an early morning debriefing with Star Fleet Intelligence in the security offices on the station when they hear a large commotion out in the central area.

There are several security personal trying to calm down an escalating argument between Krethom G’ork, captain of the stations Klingon hockey team, the ‘apuStoQ and Zheo th’Fluery, the captain of the Andorian Atomics hockey team.
G’ork is accusing Zheo or members of his team of the dishonorable tactic of kidnaping their star goalie, Ch’ty Shon.
A familiar face also seems to be involved in the argument, Lt Zhaav th’Zoarhi, former Flight Controller on the Kimura, now assigned to the Galvarino.

The story is that the night before, the Andorians were practicing in the main hockey arena on the station, and the Klingons were using the practice arena. Ch’ty decided to stay a little longer and was going to meet her teammates in the blood wine hall when she was done, but never showed up. They went looking for her in the morning when she didn’t show up for her regular engineering work shift. She could not be found anywhere and the Klingons decided to interrogate the Andorians, which resulted in them all being hauled into the Security Office.

The Chief of Security asks if the crew members would mind doing some initial investigation as most of the security team is tied up developing protocols for testing for Changlings. The Klingons reluctantly agree to allow them 24 hours before they will take matters into their own hands. The play off game is scheduled for the following evening.

Zhaav introduces the Kimura crew to his “little” brother Zheo, who is significantly larger than Zhaav. They all head to the Galleria to a small restaurant to have some breakfast, do some catching up, and get some details from Zheo on what occurred the previous night. He vouches for his team and insists that no one on the team would stoop to tactics to win the game that way. Even though the odds makers have the Klingons favored to win, he is certain they would be able to beat them even with Ch’ty playing. They finish their breakfast, Zheo heads off to his regular job and the crew, along with Zhaav head down to the arena.

They check for any logs or recordings that might be available, there are no recordings of the actual practices in either arena, but there is a log the shows that a holo program had been running in the practice arena, but had timed out at 10:00 PM after being idle for 30 minutes. There is also a note that the Zamboni (more like a giant Rhomba) logged that some equipment had been collected from the ice and placed in the storage bin in the room at the far end of the rink. They head over to the practice arena. After some slipping and sliding, they make it to the far end of the rink and notice a purple stain on the ice in the area of the goal crease. Dr. Onyah is able to identify it as Klingon blood, and a significantly large amount even after the ice had been cleaned.

In the Zamboni room they find a goalie helmet and stick in the lost and found bin. An examination of the helmet shows that the face shield had been tampered with. Dok is quite impressed with the tampering. The force field that provides the protection (which the Klingons reluctantly use) was altered to flash brightly and provide a shock when it received a remote signal. This should be enough to render most humanoids unconscious.

In the adjoining locker room, Zhaav discovers Ch’ty’s locker, which still has her civilian clothing in it and none of her hockey equipment. He decides to inspect the rest of the locker room and finds what appears to be a dead Andorian in one of the shower stalls. One of the Andorian’s antennae is missing, and the skin in that area is green rather than blue.
Dr. Oyhah quickly confirms that it is an Orion and that he died when his throat was crushed with a blow that is a match to the goalie stick. A closer examination of the helmet and the area near the goalie crease turns up additional traces of Orion blood, but it isn’t a match to the body found in the shower, leading them to conclude there were at least two assailants.

An examination of some video footage from areas near the arena from near 9:30 does show a glimpse of an Andorian pushing a cart walking with a female Orion that is recognized as Captain Pja Takenka. Footage from the area where her ship is docked shows the disguised Orion returning, then a couple hours later, a female Orion in robes returning as well, but cannot be positively identified.

They decide to go to Pja’s ship to talk to her. It turns out that she hasn’t been seen since the previous night. They are also told by her second in command that she has been acting strangely for the last three days, missing important meetings, disappearing without notice, and generally ignoring her duties. They also agree with the crews assessment that if Pja was to be involved in something like this, she would never be this sloppy. However, there would be no reason for her to do something like this as they are already set up to make a good profit on the game with parties that have been booked on the ship and the betting on the game that is already taken place. An incident like this might change the odds, but it was too far ahead of the game to really be able to profit from it.

The crew does get access to some of Pja’s personal communications and discovers that she was paying to have a meal delivered twice a day to an unaffiliated company with a reputation of being “goons for hire”. This morning an additional meal, suitable for a Klingon was added to the order.

The meals are being ordered from a Ferengi establishment. They make a deal with the owner to do the delivery themselves, with Ratzel acting as a new delivery person and Doc as his trainer and the rest of the crew staking the place out. To make a long scene short, they end up trapping two of the goons that are taking the meals somewhere in a cargo turbo lift. They get taken down into one of the private storage areas and find a storage container that has been set up as a prison cell, where they discover Captain Pja and Ch’ty Shon.

They determine that Captain Pja was drugged shortly after arriving at the station and was replaced by a Changling. The Changling arranged for the kidnapping, including disguising a couple of Pja’s crew as Andorians. The two crew members approached Pja while she was practicing, they set off the helmet that they had booby trapped earlier while Ch’ty was at work. She fell to the ice and the goons went over, expecting her to be unconscious. They were mistaken, she was blinded, but waited until she heard them get near, lashed out with her stick at the first one, killing him instantly and head butted the second. Unfortunately she didn’t hit him hard enough and he pulled out a knife and stabbed her, which was enough to send her into unconsciousness.
The second goon called the fake Pja in to help, and was quite surprised when she told him just to stash his partner’s body in the locker room. But he wasn’t in the habit of questioning his boss. She helped him load Ch’ty into a laundry bin and they wheeled her away. Once they arrived at a turbo lift, she sent him back to the ship and said she would take care of Ch’ty herself. Ch’ty woke up in the cell with Pja several hours later. Some basic medical care had been applied and other than meals showing up earlier this morning, nothing else had happened. The imposter had not been seen since.

At this point things were turned over to station security. The best bet was that the Changling’s goal was just to add to the tension levels on the station but wasn’t prepared to kill anyone at this point. The death of the Orion crew member likely put a damper on whatever other plans they may have had and they choose to simply fade away. For now.

Ch’ty insisted on playing in the game, getting some additional medical care before hand. She played well, but the Atomics beat the ‘apuStoQ rather soundly.