50018.5 "The
Return, part 1"
Story by Fred Furtado
While en route to
Starbase 773 to take their recently-assigned posts aboard the USS Nautilus,
Commander Lacan Antares, Lieutenant Commander Ray, Lieutenant Zatrang and Ensign
Alesander Saladin receive an automatic distress signal. Altering their course,
they intercept the source of the signal, an adrift USS Mendel. Exploration
of the ship reveals it to have been attacked by an unknown force and the crew
to have been killed. Although most of the Mendel's computer files are
damaged beyond repair, the officers manage to calculate where the ship was attacked.
They contact Starfleet and plot a course to an uncharted system outside the
border of Federation space.
50039.1 "The
Return, part 2"
Story by Fred Furtado
Arriving at the system,
the crew makes extensive sensor sweeps in search of an alien vessel, but finds
nothing. Investigating the third planet, they locate survivors and an unknown
alien species keeping them captive. They land, rescue the prisoners through
the transporter and leave the planet without any resistance from the aliens.
In orbit, they detect a ship of unknown configuration arriving. They flee, but
the ship pursues and attacks. The officer's runabout, the USS Amazonas,
takes heavy damage, but Cmdr. Antares manages to get cover in the system's asteroid
belt. The officers do not return fire and after some moments the alien ship
disengage, returning to the planet. They return to Federation space in poor
condition, but halfway through are taken up by the Nautilus. Lt. Zatrang,
following a hunch and a vague memory, establishes a link with the Klingon Computer
Network and discovers that the aliens are actually the Kinshaya, a savage race
who battled the Klingons 120 years ago, in what became known as the "Demon War."
The Klingons thought they had destroyed the Kinshaya, but, apparently, they
are back.
50044.5 "Missing,
part 1"
Story by Fred Furtado
At Starbase 773, Captain
Nigel Harriman conducts Admiral Riley on a tour of the Nautilus, while
he is informed of his mission objectives. Meanwhile, Lt. Cmdr. Roberto T. Cruz,
USS Highflyer's Chief Medical Officer, arrives at the Starbase from the
150th Congress of Applied Xenosciences. He is hitching a ride to Parliament,
where he will take another ship to rendezvous with the Highflyer. Capt.
Harriman is not exactly happy with having "taxi duty" as his first mission,
especially with Dr. Cruz's "easygoing" attitude, but decides to concentrate
on his speech to the crew. After a day of travel, the captain is contacted by
Admiral Riley and instructed to change course to Gamma Eridani II, in the quarantined
Thoril sector. It seems the Federation research team, who was conducting an
interactive, undercover investigation of the culture, failed to sent its last
report. The Nautilus must find out what happened to the group. Researching
the sector's history, the crew finds out that the first ship to explore it was
the USS Caledonia. It found a handful of systems that suffered massive
racial transplantation, probably by the Preservers. The population also displayed
anomalous psychic abilities. The Caledonia was mysteriously destroyed
and the whole sector was quarantined, but a research group was placed in one
of the systems. Arriving at the planet, Cmdr. Antares, Dr. Cruz and two other
officers beam down disguised to investigate. A new ship, several times the size
of the Nautilus, and shaped like a manta ray, enters the system. As they
do not answer the hails, Capt. Harriman orders the shields up. A vulcanoid being
materializes in the bridge, despite the shields, and speaks to Harriman. He
demands that the Nautilus leave the system immediately, or he and his
fellows Avatars will destroy the Nautilus like they did the Caledonia.
Harriman argues that they are searching for coleagues lost in the planet. The
vulcanoid gives him twelve hours to leave, then disappears.
