AAR: Attempted Theft of the Thana Vaneri

anncarise_ · April 24, 2018, 12:00am

SUBMITTED:
Stardate 94309.6

FILED BY:
Lieutenant B'Atar

SECURITY:
Level 2 - Confidential

LOCATION: Starbase 151 and Deep Space

MISSION: Starbase defense / Recovery of stolen ship

OUTCOME: SNV Thana Vaneri was retaken from Branded Lady forces with minimal possible damage to the ship. Minor personnel losses from KDF and allies compared to complete elimination of the enemy's deployed forces. However, Mercenary Captain Marduk and the entire crew of the NFV Shadowfin was killed sometime prior to the theft. The bar is also going to need repairs.

KEY PERSONNEL:

NARRATIVE: On stardate 94301.9, a new mercenary crew arrived at Starbase 151 on the NFV Shadowfin. Their leader Captain Marduk, apparently of some fame, offered to pay for everyone's drinks for the night. The announcement was made through station comms, causing me and many other warriors to rush over to the bar. When I arrived I found that Captain Marduk was not present, only fellow Task Force members including Captain Sadia, Tabadi Mysti and Subcommander Heras as well as a new Orion arrival called Sogun. Egzo soon joined us afterwards.

We waited for a bit but instead of Captain Marduk but we were warned that intruders had beamed onto the deck. Egzo and I readied our weapons and went to defend the entrance of the bar. A suspicious drone was speeding for us, so I shot it down with my pistol. I didn't know that some dishonourable petaQ had made the drone to explode, and the explosion took me out. From what I heard, two mechanical spiders of Blood Queen Maral's design, like the ones that had attacked the station before, then entered the bar and began shooting. A similar attack was reported to be happening in the station command centre. After a brief firefight the enemies were defeated, though one was beamed into the floor for some reason and messed up the power in the bar.

While everyone was fending off the spiders across the station, Egzo directed his people to board the Shadowfin. They found that it was filled with traps but managed to make their way past the traps and find that Marduk and the entire mercenary crew were already dead. At the same time, the SNV Thana Vaneri, Tabadi Mysti's command and flagship of the OSN, began leaving the station. It seemed that the people who hijacked the Shadowfin beamed over to the Thana and was trying to steal that ship. Using a symbol carved into Marduk, Sadia and Egzo were able to determine that the rogue Syndicate leader known only as the Branded Lady was responsible.

Captain Sadia ordered all our ships to intercept. The Captain brought me to the raptor IKS Girak which she commanded for the pursuit. Tabadi Mysti hitched a ride on the IKS QanwI' with another of the new mercenaries, Honour Guard Captain Lexi. IKS Hag'lhr, IKS SuD' Ach Hurg and IKS Riesling were all along for the chase. The ships followed the Thana Vaneri's warp trail to its first warp out point where they found the FMS Premium who had attempted to stop the Thana but were not strong enough alone.

FMS Premium joined the pursuit and its captain noted that the Thana Vaneri were heading for the Badlands, where they would be impossible to track. This was when Captain Sadia called for allies to assist, and at the next warp out point another Ferengi ship, this one a D'Kora-class, was trying to slow down the Thana. The D'Kora was heavily damaged but the IKS SuD' Ach Hurg intervened in time to save it from total destruction. The remainder of our ships fought the Thana, trying to disable it without damaging the ship too much.

When the Thana Vaneri's warp drive was disabled and one of the shield facings went down, the Branded Lady forces attempted to self-destruct the ship. Fortunately, Mysti's drone Chirrups was on board and able to stall them while we beamed over. Three assault teams managed to board before some shields were restored and the rest of our forces were locked out. I was up in time to join the main assault team with Sadia, Egzo and Mysti. We hit main engineering to try and stop the self-destruct while the two other teams tried to lower the shields for good so reinforcements can come.

A Gorn and three Nausicaans, one of which was a sniper hidden on the second level, guarded the engineering room. They appeared to be some of the Branded Lady's elite troops and put up quite a fight but we managed to vanquish them, in no small part due to Tabadi Mysti's familiarity of the ship. Some of the enemy technicians fought back while one tried to shoot the warp core and force the self-destruct, but they were sent to the same fate as the rest of their comrades.

The other two teams lowered the shields at this point, allowing boarding parties to beam over en masse. Hag'Ihr's teams retook the bridge but reported that everyone important there had already fled. They were trying to get to the hangar bays to escape and a large battle ensued in the hangar. While Egzo and Mysti stopped the ship's self-destruct, Sadia and I headed over to join the fight.

It was going well until a fake Mysti arrived and caught us off guard, using an EMP grenade to disable our armour. Before she could finish us off, the real Mysti arrived with Egzo, forcing her to drop her weapons. Her surrender was an obvious trap and one of the assassin clones, apparently called a 'Raven model' tried to sneak up to Mysti, but I spotted and shot her. Then the fake Mysti really surrendered and pulled the kill switch in all the clones on the Thana, ending the fight.

The fake Mysti then proceeded to converse with us for some time. She revealed that she was an exact clone of Mysti, created in order to more easily bypass security locked to Mysti on the Thana Vaneri so they could make a speedy theft of the ship. The clone was controlled directly by the Branded Lady, who spoke to us through the fake Mysti. She talked some Orion politics with the real Mysti and accused the OSN of starting this feud before pulling the kill trigger on that clone as well, ending the attempted takeover of the Thana.

RECOMMENDATION: We should fix up the Thana Vaneri as soon as we can. She's one of the big ships we have and both her ability to take hits and her fighter complement has been very useful to us on missions. The Branded Lady also left the Vandal-class Shadowfin docked with the station, and even though it's filled with traps it could be worth seeing if that ship is usable or at least salvageable. We should probably also check out the clone bodies to see if there's any new info these can give us.

There's also some Orion politics to deal with. I'm pretty sure the Branded Lady is just trying to mess with us by saying that the Orion Space Navy started this, but that's probably Mysti's business to find out.

This is all the paperwork for this mission.

//SIGNED//

Sogh B'Atar
I.K.S. San'leth

OOC: This is the outcome of the Koledru Vaneri event. If I've unintentionally misrepresented your character's actions, misspelled their names, got their rank incorrect, et cetera, please send me a PM over enjin and I'll make the necessary edits.