BOTV Episode 06

*"I don't like this chair; it feels uncomfortable, somehow. Did anyone do anything to this chair?"*
—**e'Daj**

## **Plot Synopsis**

*CONTENT WARNING:* Blood of the Void *is a game about Klingons. Episodes contain acts of violence and other adult content. Unlike other areas of the website, individual sections of this article will not be tagged with content warnings.*

### **Pre-Break**

The episode opens with IKS *Borqu'* about to depart Narendra Station for the first time since CDR e'Daj became captain after CAPT B'emir's promotion. No specific orders have appeared for the ship, and the crew is getting restless.

e'Daj orders the ship to leave port. LT Ra'amyan (now the first officer) asks for a course, and e'Daj just points. Ra'amyan takes the ship in that direction. A few minutes later, IKS Borqu' receives a hail from B'emir's sister, Qarol (the new head of the House of Ke'vek. Qarol orders e'Daj to take IKS Borqu' back to Qo'noS, where Qarol will determine the fate of the ship and its new captain. e'Daj is defiant, but agrees. She orders Ra'amyan to take the ship to Qo'noS; the journey will take several months.

Upon hearing the duration of the journey, LT Qotar warns e'Daj that is birthday is in two months, and it will be the time of his *pon farr*. He will be biologically compelled to take a mate, or at least to fight to the death for one. The crew discuss options for dealing with this in alternative means, but Qotar is insistent that nothing else will do. e'Daj says they will deal with it when the time comes.

She orders LT Omeq to scan for anything interesting in their path to Qo'noS. He discovers that there is a ship in their path, only a few days away. When they arrive, Omeq identifies it as a Rigelian freighter. The ship is intact, but drifting. There is evidence of weapons fire, and only two life-signs aboard. Ra'amyan looks up the ship's registry, and finds that it is owned by some Jelna from Rigel V (the Rigelian homeworld).

Qotar declares his intention to investigate. R'yeq storms up from main engineering to ask why they've stopped. The whole bridge crew, minus Qotar, decide to beam over to investigate. Qotar stays behind. When they arrive, Omeq discovers the two life-signs are on opposite ends of the ship: the bridge and the engine room. The group splits into pairs. e'Daj and Ra'amyan head forward to the bridge. Omeq and R'yeq head to the engine room.

e'Daj and Ra'amyan arrive outside the bridge but find no one. Ra'amyan attempts to scan for the life-sign, but his tricorder craps out on him. Suddenly, they both hear a noise and look up. A humanoid in body armor drops down from the ceiling and pins them both. e'Daj pulls out her *d'k tagh* and stabs them in the leg. The person lets go and flees down a flight of stairs.

Meanwhile, in the engine room, the life-sign has disappeared from Omeq tricorder. He takes a moment to build an automatic detection ping for his tricorder which will track their movements. He finds a signal behind a nearby door. He heads for the door while R'yeq heads for the engineering console. He opens the door, but the person behind it grabs him, throws him into the room, and seals the door. A few moments later he hears the sound of R'yeq engaged in combat.

On the freighter's bridge, Ra'amyan accesses the ship's computer. It had engaged an unknown vessel which attacked. Two life-forms from the attacking vessel beamed aboard the freighter shortly before the attacker was destroyed.

Qotar beams to R'yeq's location to render assistance. She is slumped over the console with a grievous energy wound. He orders and emergency transport to sickbay and retrieves Omeq. The two hear a slight movement and Qotar reflexively turns and fires his disruptor, hitting an open door. Behind the door they discover a group of Jelna. The leader introduces himself as Jemir. He explains that they were attacked by two hunters. There are 10 of them remaining of an original crew of 18. One of the other Jelna identify the hunters as Hirogen. Qotar gets very excited, and orders the Jelna to be transported to IKS Borqu'. Qotar and Omeq head to meet up with e'Daj and Ra'amyan.

When they enter, e'Daj reflexively whips a dagger at Qotar. He catches it out of the air and greets her. Qotar and Omeq inform them of the situation. Hirogen are a technologically advanced species from the Delta quadrant. Their entire society revolves around hunting, including sapient species. Omeq looks at his tracker and finds the two Hirogen are down in some of the cargo bays. Everyone heads down.

### **Post-Break**

Meanwhile, on IKS *Borqu'*, R'yeq lies in her sickbed, dying. Her second-in-command, D'Wa arrives. R'yeq is satisfied that her death was in combat. She passes the title of chief engineer to D'Wa. She hands D'Wa a PADD with the data she retrieved from the freighter's engineering console. R'yeq dies. D'Wa and the nurses perform the *Heghtay*, roaring to warn the Black Fleet in *sto-vo-kor* of the impending arrival of a warrior.

On the freighter, the crew stands outside cargo bay 2, where Omeq's tricorder says one of the Hirogen is located (the other is down the hall in cargo bay 9). e'Daj climbs into the overhead to prepare to jump the Hirogen if it leaves. Qotar enters the cargo bay and tosses in a stun grenade, catching the Hirogen in the blast. Omeq steps up and fires his disruptor, hitting the Hirogen square in the chest. e'Daj dramatically swings down from the overhead and lands on top of the Hirogen.

She holds her blade to his throat and asks their purpose. They say that they are there to hunt, and they scream out a warning to their partner. The other Hirogen rushes out of cargo bay 9 and charges, firing at Ra'amyan. Ra'amyan takes a serious hit to the shoulder and goes down. Qotar stands behind the door, waiting for the charging Hirogen. When they arrive, he takes a mighty swing with his *bat'leth*, nearly cleaving the Hirogen in half.

e'Daj stabs her Hirogen in the throat, and drags the body out to the hallway to the others. D'Wa transports to the freighter. They announce to the group that R'yeq is dead, and they are the new chief engineer. Ra'amyan does a very strained *Heghtay*. e'Daj orders R'yeq and Omeq to head to engineering to get the freighter running again. She apologizes to D'Wa for taking their chance at vengeance. She then heals Ra'amyan.

On their way to engineering, D'Wa wonders aloud how a group of Hirogen from the Delta quadrant (decades away at maximum warp) arrived there. Omeq and D'Wa engage in some small talk about the age of IKS Borqu' and their roles as people not focused on combat systems. D'Wa tells him that R'yeq was her adoptive mother. They pull the data from R'yeq's PADD that she handed D'Wa, and use it to access the freighter's engineering logs. On the way, they discover the skinned and cleaned bodies of the other Jelna (a known Hirogen practice).

In the aftermath, the crew discover that the attacking ship was Hirogen in origin. While it was attacking the freighter, a gravimetric anomaly (a feature of the Shackleton Expanse) spontaneously appeared inside their ship and destroyed it. The ship was a family of Hirogen: a father, mother, and teenage daughter. They had made the decades-long journey from the Delta Quadrant in search of the hunt.

Later, the crew assemble in the cargo bay to pay respects to R'yeq. There is an urn containing her ashes present. e'Daj screams, wails, weeps, and rips out some of her own hair by the root. She leaves it by the urn. The rest of the crew pay their respects and leave. After everyone else leaves, D'Wa approaches the urn. They open the lid, and withdraw a pendant from under their armor. They open the pendant and pour a small drop of liquid into the urn. They say a quiet prayer.

*"What challenges me, strengthens me. Let the river guide you to your place of rest."*
—**D'Wa** to R'yeq's ashes

## **Cast**

* Aliza Pearl - Game Master
* Jade Law - E'Daj
* Phillip Jeanmarie - Omeq
* Quincy Surasmith - Ra'amyan
* Christopher Eddins - Qotar
* Aki - D'Wa

## **Non-Player Characters**

* R'yeq
* The Hirogen
* Jemir
* Qarol

## **Notable Lines**

*"I don't like this chair; it feels uncomfortable, somehow. Did anyone do anything to this chair?"*
—**e'Daj** about the captain's chair

*"Is it that time of the decade, Qotar?"*
—**Ra'amyan** about Qotar's *pon farr*

*"You can't replicate pon farr."*
—**Qotar**

*"Who are you and why are you kicking me!?"*
—**e'Daj**

*"Huntsman, find us the prey, then."*
—**Qotar** to Omeq

*"I advise you don't try to surprise a Klingon from now on. Life lesson."*
—**Qotar** to Jemir

*"Hiiiiirogeeeeen! Come out and plaaaaayyyyyy!."*
—**Qotar**

*"If that is your only business here, then you have failed, sir. You thought we were easy prey? Look at you, lying here in your shame."*
—**e'Daj**

*"There ya go, all fixed up. Now, get back in there, and don't get shot again."*
—**e'Daj** to Ra'amyan

*"Death is a funny thing; it's something that we all can't avoid."*
—**Omeq**

*"I'm really just a glamorized scanner."*
—**Omeq** to D'Wa

*"Omeq, I don't understand this science station of yours. It doesn't say thrusters, or anything."*
—**Ra'amyan**

*"What challenges me, strengthens me. Let the river guide you to your place of rest."*
—**D'Wa** to R'yeq's ashes

## **Notes and Trivia**

* [Out of character information from the cast (from Campbell livestreams, Q&As, Twitter, etc.)]