War of the Gods (Part 9.1)
The hostage crisis deepens into a tense stand-off between the captured ships and the allied rescue force.
The CO comes up with a plan to take control of the ships using the prefix codes and activating the internal security system flooding every ship with sleep gas in a co-ordinated attack with RRT units backed up by security troopers from all the ships. Everything goes according to plan and all the ships are recaptured although several RRTs are injured as are some Trills.
During emergency surgery, the CMO learns that the Dominants cannot be removed without great danger to the dormant symbiont at least without the cooperation of the Dominant who of course refuses to leave. What is more troubling is that the Dominants have been able to tap into the knowledge of the various Trill they have captured and learn valuable secrets from the Dax and Odan symbionts relating to Federation military and political strengths and weaknesses.
Back at DS9, the Valkir just continue to observe, despite their promises of assistance, they have not given the alliance anything that would help them in the war. Although the Dominants have been largely confined to the Tantalus Nebula and the space around it, the alliance lines are not holding and temple ships are able to roam space relatively freely although new conquests are ruled out.
All through this Sisko is strangely closed mouthed about his apparent relationship with the Valkir. Several stormy meetings with Admiral Ross and other senior alliance officers cause Ross to distrust his old friend.
Meeting with the CO in private, Ross gives her secert instructions. The ship is to enter the Otanka Anomaly and learn more about the Valkir and where they come from. More importantly, to find out what their role in this war is and who's pulling the strings. The CO agrees to undertake the mission and the crew is beefed up with RRT troops and a pair of strikefighters.
The ship leaves DS9 apparently on a scouting mission but instead they head off for the Otanka Anomaly. The gravatic tidal forces almost pulls the ship apart but they find themselves in a time 65 million years in the past and are confronted by a massive fleet of Valkir ships. They are hailed by the Valkir and on the forward viewer Sisko but this Sisko appears to be Bajoran...
(End Part 9.1)
War of the Gods (Part 9.2)
Sisko asks the CO to beam over to his ship. He explains that he was expecting their arrival. He is Sisko, but a Sisko who is older and wiser. He explains that his experiences in the Fire Caves had changed him and he lived outside of linear time. He had come back to this time to fulfil his own legend, to lead the proto-Bajorans to play their part in the war against the Dominants and to leave clues to his "future" existence as the Emissary, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sisko explains that the CO and her crew were supposed to come here to learn how to defeat the Dominants. When asked what the Valkir were doing in the future, Sisko just says they have their part to play although he no longer lives in linear time, Sisko cannot interfer and pollute the timeline so whatever the Valkir ship in the "present" was supposed to do is not to be made known.
Sisko introduces the CMO to the physician on his ship who explains how to remove the Dominant symbionts from the spinal column of their hosts without killing the Host.
The CO asks Sisko how the Federation is supposed to defeat the Dominants. Sisko does not answer but gives the CO the missing fragments to the tablet the CMO had found on Trill. When pieced together the tablet are a key to open the vault of the temple on Trill and there the PCs would find the answers they seek.
The CO thanks Sisko and takes the ship back through the Otanka Anomaly and to the "present". The CO orders the ship to Trill and leads the away team down to the temple site and after some searching the away team locates the vault. The fragments of the tablet fit into an elaborate niche and the vault slowly rumbles open...
(end part 9.2)
War of the Gods (Part 10)
Since I have everyone on the edge of their seats, time to post a new instalment of my latest and greatest :) storyline.
The great vault door creaks open to reveal a room walled with obsidian. On each wall is writing in strange language, four separate ones. In the centre of the room standing inside a circle of gold carved with intricate runes is a marble pedestal. On the pedestal is box carved with icons.
The XO steps into the circle and picks up the box and he is struck by a mysterious ray and knocked unconscious. The box is a puzzle box which can only be opened by pressing the correct sequence of icons. What is the correct sequence is anyone's guess.
The away team beams back on board with the unconscious XO and the mystery box as well as recordings of all the inscriptions in the vault room.
The various languages on the walls are indecipherable although similar carvings had been found at various archeological sites. The same sites attacked by the Dominants early in the war.
The wording on the ring was not hard to decipher, it was written in ancient High Bajoran. Translated, it says the Place of Keeping.
Meanwhile, the Dominants had broken out of the Tantalus Nebula and have begun concerted attacks on the forces blocking the way to Trill. So it is essential that the crew figure out how to open the box.
The box puzzles everyone including the Vulcan Ops officer who prides (can a Vulcan be proud?) herself in her ability to solve games and puzzles.
Down in sickbay, the XO is in guarded condition according to the CMO. His brainwave activity is higher than normal so he should not be in a coma but attempts to revive him have failed. As the CMO muses, the XO just gets up and shurgs aside attempts to restrain him. He walks into the lab where the box is being kept and opens it by tapping in the correct sequence of icons. The box opens to reveal a single crystal which the XO says is a data crystal. Everyone is confused, what is a data crystal? He says its a form of memory storage system but requires a "player" to read...it won't interface with the ship's computer. When asked how he knew this, he shrugs and says that he knows.
The CMO scans him and finds that his brain activity had increased expotentially and appears to be slowly increasing. But at the same time his body metabolism was completely out of wack which may pose a physical danger to him.
The XO pushes aside the CMO's concerns and those of the CO and the Strategic Ops officer and locks himself in one of the electronics workshops and in a few hours emerges with a "reader" for the data crystal. The Chief engineer is completely puzzled as he can't make head or tail of the design or the drawings that the XO had made.
Anyway, the reader works perfectly and decodes the data crystal and downloads the information into the ship's computer. The crystal details Dominant weaknesses and strengths and means to defeat the temple ships and details locations of where additional equipment to defeat the Dominants can be found. Chief among them is the location of a functioning Valkir ship.
With the information from the crystal, Starfleet is able to stem the Dominant tide but are far from able to defeat them. Allied ships are thrown into the battle but they can only slow the Dominants' advance. The PCs are dispatched to locate the caches of equipment hoping that something can be found.
The first problem is that the navigational data is several million years out of date, so the tedious task of calculating galactic drift had to be plotted into the nav computer. Again the XO's hyperintelligence is able to make short work of the replotting but as he does this, his body grows steadily weaker. The CMO can't find any way to cure him but hopes that in one of the caches a cure can be found.
The initial caches yeild nothing more than new data crystals detailing weapons and ships but the specifications can't be met with current technology and in any event would take too long to build.
The last cache is the fallen Valkir ship but the PCs arrive in time to find a temple ship hovering over the planet with an assault force on the surface excavating the site of the Valkir ship. The PCs are captured again but to prevent them from escaping they are removed from their ship and taken to the surface. Everyone except the CMO and the XO who is now dying...
That's it for now...more next time.
(End Part 10)
