"The Displaced"
Part of the Star Trek Season Four project by Arcas, Drell-7, Ptrope, Wmwconnors, and Celticarchie.
Apologies for the long text, but trust me... it's all meat, no filler.


Captain Log, Stardate 5251.33: We are proceeding at maximum warp from our patrol near the Gorn frontier to Starbase 25. We've had an accident in engineering. Chief Engineer Scott is in critical condition after being crushed under defective graviton field alignment tube. Dr. McCoy has done all he can to stabilize Scotty, but he will soon die without the aid of a Starbase’s advanced facilities. We are racing against the clock to save one of my most valuable crewman… and a friend.

Meanwhile our new navigator, Mr. Arex, continues to be a spectacle for stolen glances from my crew. With only four Edosians in Starfleet, he’s quite a novel sight. However the increased attention does not seem to be effecting Lt. Arex’s job performance. I am keeping an eye on the situation.

TEASER
The Enterprise is heading to the nearest Starbase at warp eight when a large, localized spacetime disturbance takes the warp engines offline. With Scotty’s life in the balance, Second Engineer Kaav scrambles to get the warp back drive up and running while Spock tries to ascertain the nature and source of the spacetime disruption.

MAIN ACTS
Spock’s investigations indicate a huge object nearby – quite probably a spacecraft as it’s under power. The Enterprise approaches the object under impulse power to investigate. They discover a large, mostly spherical object. Sensors report life forms aboard – almost fifteen thousand individual life signatures. But something is odd as the object’s outer hull seems to be increasing in temperature even though there are no nearby radiating objects.

The Enterprise continues its approach while Kirk and Spock ponder the object and Kaav works madly to restore warp power. Suddenly the whole crew is hit with severe dizziness and a sense of nausea. Fifteen second later, it hits them again. Kirk orders full-stop and no further effects are felt. However they are now close enough for a detailed visual inspection of the mysterious ship. It is not a design that they can find in any Starfleet records.

Uhura tries hailing the vessel with linguicode greetings, but there are no return signals on subspace or radio frequencies. Suddenly the ship goes to red alert as steady, continuous laser beam erupts from the alien vessel, aimed at the Enterprise. The beam’s energy is not high enough to cause any damage and after a minute Uhura recognizes the emission as a communication laser. She adjusts the ship’s sensors to read the sign, resulting in a high-pitched alien voice. Engaging the universal translator, the Enterprise crew get a translation… though it takes longer than usual as this language seems to have no analogs in Federation records.

While waiting Kirk calls down to sickbay to check on Scotty. His condition is worsening. Meanwhile Spock has determined the reason the aliens ship’s hull is heating. The ship, and all its crew, are made of antimatter! The thin interstellar dust is slowly eating away at the hull in a series of micro-explosions. Within about ten hours the hull will be so damaged it will expose the alien crew to vacuum.

Finally the computer provides the alien signal translation: “Stay back. We can defend ourselves. We wish not to make harm. We are lost in the confusing way. Our steed tripped on a space pit. We only want to return to the origin.” Though the language is a bit stilted, the meaning is fairly clear. Kirk asks Spock what he makes of it. Spock’s eyebrows raise in an expression of enlightened discovery (or as close to that as one can expect from a Vulcan).

Putting together the alien report with his sensor readings, Spock has a theory. The alien craft has been spit out through an unstable wormhole whose end point is mostly likely in a very different part of the universe where a knot of antimatter was able to remain isolated enough to form a galaxy… or galaxies. This ship and its crew are a long way from home.

As they refine communications, the aliens who call themselves the “Greeyak Tah” (literal translation: “The Chosen for Survival”) confirm Spock’s theory. They accidentally tripped into a wormhole and were deposited here in their sublight craft – a huge colonial transporter. They are at a loss to figure out how to return home and their eroding hull gives them a time imperative.

The Tellarite Second Engineer, Kaav, reports that the warp engines are back online and ready to resume warp eight. Meanwhile Spock reports he might have a way to reopen the wormhole and get the Greeyak Tah back to their home… however it will require more time than Mr. Scott has left… and it will require some navigational calculations that only the new Edoan navigator could reliably calculate, due to his races unique sense of the fabric of spacetime. Kirk must decide: save fifteen thousand sentients from a race the Federation will never meet again, or try to save his friend’s life.

The relation between the two ships has grown friendly and realizing that their cultures may never meet again, the two ships are exchanging cultural information. Just as Kirk decides that their allegiance has to be with their comrade and Starfleet, Spock stumbles on the details of the aliens’ medical technology. In this area they are advanced far beyond Federation science and members of their crew would be able to treat Scotty… if it weren’t for the fact that they’d explode on contact with him.

Kirk acknowledges it’d be a great idea… “if only”. Mr. Arex chimes in that there may be a way. It should be theoretically possible for the Enterprise’s transporters to do “an particle substitution” during transport, allowing them to beam over the Greeyak Tah doctors and covert them to a positive matter form for the duration of their visit. Kirk ponders the option and nervously agrees. It’s now all or nothing.

Spock and Arex work at breakneck speed to come up with a way to reopen the wormhole in time. Meanwhile Kaav has been able to make the transporter modification and the Greeyak Tah doctors beam onboard. The crew is surprised as the sparkling transporter beams yield six short, green furred lemur-like creatures with four arms and three eyes. They are quickly ushered to sickbay where a bewildered and nervous Dr. McCoy surrenders his dying patient to them.

Spock and Arex complete their study and have a solid plan for reopening the wormhole. The timing is vital. The wormhole’s terminus is drifting. As it passes close to a nearby pulsar, three precisely placed and simultaneously detonated photon torpedos should cause wormhole to open for a few seconds. The Enterprise uses its tractor beam to take the alien ship in tow and heads for the neuron star.

The timing is tense as the alien doctors clamor all around and over Mr. Scott to complete their procedure before the wormhole must be opened. With the photon torpedos launched, the aliens hop from the table and report Mr. Scott is now safe. With no time to get to the transporter room, Kaav beams the aliens directly out of the sickbay. Transporting with particle substitution takes a few more seconds than usual. The transport seems to be completed just microseconds before wormhole closes around the lost alien ship, but the Enterprise crew can never be sure the transport was successful.

CLOSING
In the Captain’s quarters, Kirk and Spock have a somber debrief of recent events. They owe Scotty’s life to the brave Greeyak Tah doctors who may have sacrificed themselves in the bargin. Kirk concludes that, absent real facts, they must try to assume that their alien friends all made a successful escape.

Kirk’s door chime rings and he orders the doors to open. In steps a haggard but vital Mr. Scott… sporting a head of green tinged hair. “It better be a temporary side effect!” Scotty exclaims with a helpless look on his face.

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I guess this piece is pretty straight forward illustrative and doesn't make much impact w/o the story, but a) I wanted to get away from ship shots (at least for a while) and b) I wanted to use this new mondo-cool Spock morph!

Bridge set and parts of the alien ship by Ptrope. Spock morph for M4 by Blubeetle3 ([link]). Trek uniforms for DAZ Valiant by JamesJAB. Vulcan texture and hair by Mylochka. DAZ Studio render.

For more of the season four project, look here: