Captain's Log Issue 2 (Magazine)
Refiner's Fire
SL25.0 Refiner's Fire
This scenario recreates the final action of the story presented in this issue.
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| Astrometrics | |
| Chronology | |
| Culture | |
| Education | |
| Food | |
| People | |
| Politics | |
| Science & Technology | |
| Ships & Vehicles | |
| Xenology | |
| Miscellaneous |
SL26.0 Mutiny on the Demonslayer
by Douglas Jew
In Y175, the Klingon D7C command cruiser Demonslayer mutinied. This time, however, the mutineers were Klingons! Commodore Jark Valgan had attempted to gain his promotion to admiral, which he considered to be long overdue, by assassinating his commander. When the plot failed, Valgan fled for his life toward Kzinti space. His officers had been deeply involved in the plot, and most supported his decision to flee. The crew, who knew that whatever happened they were along for the ride, did not oppose Valgan's action at first, but later were incited to mutiny (ironically, a mutiny in support of the empire!) by loyal crewmen.
Demonslayer roared for the border, but found its way blocked by a squadron of frigates. Valgan had already contacted the Kzinti, who were sending their nearest ship to help.
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SL27.0 Merchant, Pirate, Soldier, Spy
Wars tend to be confusing times, and not everything is as it seems. Take the case of a starship commander, patrolling a distant portion of the frontier, out of immediate contact with his superiors, who comes upon a pirate ship molesting a convoy. As he approaches, one freighter lashes out with sudden fury at the pirate. "Q-ship!" the commander gloats, "We've got the pirate now!" Before he can reach battle range, however, the sub-space communication system comes alive with claims and accusations.
"This is Fleet Captain Andros in the pirate vessel. We are not pirates but a naval unit on a secret naval mission. Security idenfication X3-54G. What appears to be one of our Q-ships is, in fact, a pirate marauder. We lured him here for a rendezvous. Please render assistance in capturing him."
"This is Captain Gran in the Q-ship. We are a naval unit on a secret mission. Security identification Y7-23T. The pirate ship is an enemy spy, not a pirate. Please render assistance in capturing him."
"Dammit, he's the spy, not me. Don't you remember me from the Academy? We used to go to the beer gardens together!"
"Don't fall for that! He may have been a spy even then!"
"Convoy leader, can you confirm the identity of the Q-ship?"
"Negative. He joined us after we cleared port. None of us have been on board his ship."
"This is the Q-ship. What would you expect from a secret naval mission?"
"Or from a pirate!"
The commander was perplexed, to say the least. Both identification codes were valid; both ships claimed to be clandestine units of his own navy. Either might be a pirate, spy, or friend. Worse, they might both be enemies, or they might both be friends!
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SL28.0 Landing Party
by Graeme Cree
In Y155, as tensions grew between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, the Federation accelerated its efforts to survey planets in the neutral zone. The Klingons considered these surveys to be a "provocation," and used them to create incidents.
On one such mission, the light cruiser Texas, under Commander Nita Howell, was making a standard survey of Vanecek VI when cosmic radiation from a solar flare forced the Texas to withdraw for 31.8 hours. A landing party had been previously transported to the surface, and remained behind (protected by the atmosphere) to complete the survey. When the Texas returned to the system, however, it found that a Klingon battlecruiser had entered the system and was blocking the way.
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SL29.0 A Question of Franchise
The Orion pirates operated on two levels. Clan overlords "controlled" all pirate activity in huge territories. Ships, some of which were "owned" by the clans and some of which were "independent" of all clans, were assigned areas (known as "franchises") in which they could operate. Most of the larger groups of pirate ships were operated by these clans, and these claimed the more lucrative franchises. In theory, no two pirates were assigned the same area.
This was not always the case, however. Sometimes, two clan overlords both claimed the right to lease a certain area. Sometimes the pirate assigned a given franchise would fall behind in his lease payments, or otherwise disappoint the overlord, and his area would be assigned to another ship. Sometimes a pirate in pursuit of quarry would follow it into another franchise territory. All of these circumstances were likely to create trouble, and a question of franchise.
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SL30.0 Practice, Practice, and Then What?
by Frank Crull
In Y171, the Federation and the Gorn were conducting a series of wargames in a special training zone. The exercises were necessary to give Federation captains experience in dealing with the Romulan Sparrowhawk and its three plasma torpedo launchers. These games used computer-generated battle damage simulations. As each ship scored "damage" (using weapons set on 1/1000th power) on the other, the computer analyzed the attack and "turned off" certain systems to simulate the damage.
The system worked well enough for training, but on one memorable occasion a Romulan Sparrowhawk arrived in the training area to find two "badly damaged" ships that were not expecting to conduct actual combat.
