After a bit of a hiatus (and some player changes), the Tiberius was finally back in action! The session started with the crew in the the mess hall attending a light reception to welcome onboard the new crew. As the Alpha Shift was mingling about, one thing caught the crew by surprise: sitting in with the band and playing some old-Earth jazz was none other than Captain Ral!
A couple of days later, the Tiberius was taking some readings of a Delta Indi star, a blue star that is expected to go Nova in a few months. That's when a call for help came in.
Admiral Walker informed the crew that the USS Venture has stopped reporting in to Narendra Station. The Admiral wasn't sure whether it's just the anomalies in the Expanse or if there is a problem, but seeing as the Tiberius is the nearest ship, we were ordered to investigate.
Once we arrived at the last known coordinates of the Venture, the Tiberius was shocked to find no ship, or thankfully debris. The Chief Engineer made some quick adjustments to the ships sensors, and the Tiberius quickly and thoroughly scanned the area looking for signs of what happened to the Venture. Scans revealed a faint ion trail leading out of this system and into the nearby star system.
With little else to go on, the Tiberius followed the trail into the Avalon system where they found the Venture. However, the ship was running at full impulse toward an M-class planet that was under the protection of the Prime Directive. Scans of the Venture revealed no damage, all crew was accounted for but unconscious, and force-fields were erected all over the ship. Using the advanced sensors onboard the Tiberius, the crew also detected something out of place with the environment on the Venture.
The crew, releasing they probably couldn't transport over to the Venture, decided to board a shuttle and park in the main shuttlebay. As a precaution, the crew took and wore EV suits. Once outside the shuttle, the crew released there was some kind of airborne virus on the ship.
Once the crews dropped the force fields in the shuttlebay, they proceeded through the Jeffries tubes to main engineering to try to regain control of the ship. Once in engineering, Chief Engineer Foxwell realized something was wrong with the computer systems as the systems were saying everything was in order (but clearly they were not). Upon inspection of the main computer core (which was smoking), the crew determined a virus (with similar properties to the airborne one) has infected the bio-neural gel packs, the likely cause for the computer malfunctions.
Determining that a cure was needed, the crew split up, with some remaining in Engineering/Computer Core and the rest going to the sickbay. The crew at sickbay discovered the Ventures CMO's logs with some insightful information about the virus. With this data, the Tiberius' CMO Lt. Jerrynn was able to construct an anti-virus. Meanwhile, the engineering team was able to re-route communications (which were down on the Venture) through the shuttlecraft.
Meanwhile, the Engineering team, taking some drastic measures to stop the ship from colliding with the planet, physically removed the plasma injectors to the impulse engine. This was a delicate process, but Chief Engineer Foxwell managed to get the engine stopped so the Tiberius could gently nudge the Venture with the tractor beams to buy more time (almost another full day) before the Venture collided with the planet.
With communications working again, Dr. Jerrynn and team were able to transmit the anti-virus data back to the Tiberius, who was able to synthesize the anti-virus. Once the anti-virus was delivered to the Venture, the crew administered the anti-virus to a fallen crew member, which seemed to revive them. With more anti-virus created, the crew of the Tiberius was able to revive the crew and spread the anti-virus to the computer system. The crew was also able to program the transporters with the virus so the transporters could screen them out.
With the Venture stopped and the crew revived, the Tiberius remained nearby as the Venture continued repairs on the ship.
Join us next time on the continuing voyages of the USS Tiberius.
