| SUBMITTED: Stardate 94123.8 | FILED BY: ENS L. Aruyo | SECURITY: Level 2 - Confidential |
LOCATION: POI 1, Alpha 7190 Sector
MISSION: Find and rescue Captain Bishop
OUTCOME: Encountered hostile alien species and engaged in battle. Enemies wiped out life on a pre-warp planet. Enemies were all killed.
KEY PERSONNEL:
CAPT Andrej Timoreev (USS Attar)
CAPT Leila Omar
CMDR Tellara Sh'Zarath
CMDR Thalszhyl'ia Zh’Zhavis
CMDR Charlotte Jarnefelt
ENS Aruyo Lara
NARRATIVE:
As we travelled to the destination, we discussed various countermeasures to reveal the enemy through their cloaking devices. Commander Sh'Zarath recommended that we use an antiproton field to reveal the enemy; scans would accumulate antiprotons naturally, it would simply be a case of redirecting these particles to reveal any cloaked ships nearby. This idea also eliminated the chance that our ships would be detected as they would if we used other methods such as tachyon pulses.
As we reached the system, we quickly confirmed that the planet was indeed an M Class planet and that the civilisation had reached a level of technology that was akin to the Earth's renaissance period. Scans immediately began to show a strange energy build-up in the planet's atmosphere. This build-up seemed to be emanating from an unusual patch of space, which, when an antiproton beam was directed at it, revealed an orbiting ship. The ship seemed to be heating up the atmosphere of the planet, seemingly to cause a mass extinction. Both the Attar and the Akagi tried to tractor the ship away but when attempting to do so, the ship fired back a countermeasure, overloading systems on the two ships. The enemy ship then hailed us, ordering us to give up the search for Captain Bishop, or risk being destroyed along with the planet. They repeated this message when we told them to stand down.
As we prepared to go to red alert, we were joined by four more battlecruisers and the battle began. Commanders Jarnefelt and Sh'Zarath, along with Captain Omar, began to work out a solution to stop the planet from overheating. Their plan was to induce a storm in the atmosphere which would block out the energy beam from the ship and protect the planet. Attempts by Captains Timoreev and Nimitz to destroy the orbiting ship were blocked by the enemy battlecruisers. Captain Nimitz continued to engage the four battlecruisers whilst his science team got to work in deploying the probes that would induce the storm. However, as the planet continued to heat up to dangerous levels, Captain Timoreev decided the best option would be to disable the orbital ship. With the now three battlecruisers, engaged with the Akagi, and with the latest volley temporarily disabling the Akagi's communications, Captain Timoreev moved the Attar to ram the orbital ship, pulling away at the last moment, to fire a full spread of torpedoes and using her tractor beam to prevent the pieces from crashing into the planet.
By this time, the Akagi had destroyed the other ships. Scans of the planet, however, showed that our efforts had been in vain; the arrival of the battlecruisers had delayed the launching of the probes and the disabling of the orbital ship long enough for the energy beam to heat the planet up to extinction levels - although we succeeded in cooling the planet, it was not until after all life had been wiped out. After collecting the debris from the enemy ships for future analysis, we head off back to DS13.
RECOMMENDATION: "The Sacred Band" threat that took Captain Bishop hostage are obviously intent in keeping him and are willing to destroy countless of innocent lives in order to drive the Federation away. It is unknown whether this act of murder was done as part of a larger goal, or whether it was specifically done in order to scare us into withdrawing our search. I recommend we take more care in our next investigation and be prepared to face an enemy who goes to extreme lengths to achieve their goals.
I would further recommend that we analyse the debris found, but these seemed to have turned into a black goo soon after they were recovered. I, therefore, recommend that we analyse the goo like substance.
Lastly, I recommend locating a research associate of Captain Bishop's, a Dr Kala Anjar; he might have knowledge of why they are so intent on keeping him away from us.
OOC: This is the AAR report for the Investigation of POI 1 for Sam's SAR. If I have misspelt anyone's names, got ranks incorrect, misrepresented or omitted actions, please let me know and I'll edit the report!