Exploration is Infectious

[KejalBuris]

Many star systems are catalogued by the Federation and filed away because they don't support life (or at least, not life as we know it). Sometimes, a starship is sent to study one or more of these systems, or it simply "fits" with the direction of another mission. The Kulep System is just one of the many. Kulep is a Main-Sequence O-Type (Blue/UV) star. Based on the rudimentary studies of the ruins on Kulep IV (the only M-Class planet in the 10-planet system), there must have been a population which heavily utilized the UV spectrum. This was not seen as a scientific breakthrough.

Either way, the planet (as I plan it) is boring, though a couple of very old ruined cities from some contemporary of the Tkon would fit. However, what is interesting is the primary moon. The light side of the moon has large, highly-reflective patches, seemingly haphazardly constructed. The dark side, however, hides a ship. It is similar in size to a Runabout, though the overall design looks much sleeker. The most amazing part of the ship, though, is what is above and below the main fuselage - solar sails, easily twice the size of the vessel. Investigating this ship brings many dangers.

First, the Universal Translator has a problem with the language. This is simple enough, but is a frustration. But if the crew come aboard to salvage records, they find that in spite of the bio-filters saying that the ship is clean, the air smells odd, and they begin to cough, going from healthy one moment to hallucinating and vomiting blood a few mere hours later. In others, it causes a skin discoloration along with those symptoms.

What the Universal Translator will finally show is that this vessel was designed and used by Terrorists, who hid under the bright patches of the moon. This ship was to dip into atmosphere and drop the virus onto an unsuspecting populace below, but there was a problem - containment was lost, and the disease killed everyone on the ship in a short matter of weeks, during which the crew tried to hide behind the moon. The longest log is that of the Chief Medical Officer, who seemed on the verge of a cure, but was using technology from centuries before.

On the bright side, if the crew does survive, the Solar Sail assembly is over 150% more efficient than Starfleet designs - reliably capable of significant percentages of light speed in gravity wells that are harmful to a Cochrane-standard warp core. However, control is an issue. Namely, there is no obvious way to do so. An investigation suggests that the crew used subspace transmitters (remote controls) not connected to a specific node, so that they could control the ship from any section, at any time. Suggestions to this include a transmitter charging station (empty), and the complete lack of controls, though there are a very small number of displays throughout the ship, which give an overall readout on ship's status, rather than a section-by-section breakdown.

How can a ship successfly help its ill crew on a runaway ship that the ship cannot interface with and the crew cannot control?!

[Williams]

Sounds like a very interesting mission, and one that may force a few crew members to face the possibility of not making it out alive. I like