A World With a Bluer Sun (mission)

*Note: This mission was the session 0 for the Star Trek: Tempest campaign and as such, will not be released as a standard episode or episodes. However, the events are still considered part of the established continuity of Star Trek: Tempest. It can be considered the first mission of the refitted USS Tempest under the command of Captain Rye-jae Maddox.*

# Summary

The Tempest investigates an old-style Starfleet distress call and traces it back to a planet near Romulan space. A wormhole orbits close to the planet, causing severe time distortions and trapping two vessels within it.

# Synopsis

## Act 1

The Tempest and her crew investigated an old style Starfleet distress call originating from an uncharted Class M planet. After tracing the signal to its source, they discovered the planet and a large temporal distortion very close to it. After scanning the distortion, they detected a small shuttlecraft sized vessel at its center, but were unable to get any further readings.

Upon beaming down to the planet, they discovered a Type-2 shuttlecraft from the USS Eridanus (NCC-T117), a Starfleet transport lost over 150 years earlier, though the shuttlecraft's logs indicated that only six years had elapsed. They were attacked by the *Eridanus*' Armory Officer, Lieutenant John Kearney, in an agitated state apparently resulting from a psychotropic compound in the planet's water supply.

After subduing Kearney, they brought him to the *Tempest* to treat his psychosis. After proceeding a safe distance from the effects of the temporal distortion, the Tempest returned and scanned its interior to discover the *Eridanus* also inside. Kearney, having recovered his state of mind, also related the events that had transpired since the *Eridanus* disappeared.

## Act 2

The *Tempest* crew beamed aboard the *Eridanus*' Chief Engineer Darlene Phillips in an attempt to make peaceful contact with the *Eridanus*' crew, with Lieutenant Commander T.J. Goodspeed even going so far as to don a period appropriate Starfleet uniform. However, Phillips displayed the same psychosis Kearney did and proceeded to attack Goodspeed before fleeing through the corridors of the Tempest. She was quickly isolated and subdued, afterwards being treated for her psychosis in the same manner as Kearney.

An away team consisting of Goodspeed and Lieutenant Nicholas Holden, accompanied by Phillips, then beamed aboard the *Eridanus* to install the psychosis cure directly into the ship's environmental system, in an attempt to cure the entire ship at once. However, before they could complete the installation, they were attacked and stunned by *Eridanus* crew members. When they awoke, they found themselves restrained and part of a show trial in the ship's mess hall, conducted by the ship's Executive Officer Caitlin Mallory.

Mallory passed summary judgment on Phillips and ordered her immediate execution by airlock. Before the execution could be carried out, Captain Maddox, Doctor Teal, Kearney, and Assistant Chief Engineer Eele Notus beamed aboard the *Eridanus* and completed the installation of the anti-psychosis treatment, rendering the rest of the crew (as well as Goodspeed and Holden) unconcious.

The second *Tempest* away team then proceeded to the mess hall to revive and free Goodspeed and Holden. While en route, an alien that had assumed the form of *Eridanus* crewmembers, catalyzing the sectarian violence that had since gripped the ship, seized control of the bridge and sealed himself in.

Maddox et al. reached the mess hall, stepping over a significant portion of the *Eridanus*' unconscious crew in the process. After reviving the pair, the combined away team proceeded to the bridge, where they cut through the circuits locking them out. They confronted the alien, who expressed extreme remorse for his actions, explaining that the temporal distortion was an accidental byproduct of the experimental gravity drive that he had been test flying. The alien explained that only a matter/antimatter reaction of sufficient size could collapse the wormhole and neutralize the temporal distortion. And that only the *Eridanus* itself could produce a sufficiently large explosion.

At that moment, Mallory, having regained consciousness, appeared in the bridge's doorway and armed with a phase pistol. Despite her paranoid psychosis being cured, she still nevertheless believed the alien to pose a mortal threat to the ship and her crew. As a result, she fired on the alien and injured him, doing so before the Tempest crew could react.

## Act 3

Holden successfully subdued Mallory before she could cause any further damage. And the alien, possessing extraordinary healing abilities, was able to recover in short order. The *Tempest* crew was able to convince him that a self sacrifice would not be necessary, that they could pilot the ship towards the center of the anomaly and release its drive section at the appropriate moment. The alien agreed to let the *Tempest* crew carry out their plan, which was ultimately successful. With the help of the *Tempest* crew, the alien was able to return to his shuttlecraft and fly through the wormhole and return to his universe before it closed for good.

## Conclusion

With the temporal distortion neutralized and the alien returned safely to his own space, the *Tempest* towed the *Eridanus* to a nearby starbase, after which its surviving crew was taken to Starbase 36 for psychiatric and temporal rehabilitation. The *Eridanus* itself was mothballed to the Galnor II surplus depot.

## Characters (NPCs)

* John Kearney
* Darlene Phillips
* Caitlin Mallory
* Eridanus Engineer
* Alien

## Vessels

* USS Eridanus (NCC-T117)
* Alien Vessel (unknown)
* Starfleet Type-1 shuttlecraft

## Background Information

The mission as written in the These Are the Voyages... mission compendium published by Modiphius features the NX-class *Atlantis* as the time displaced ship. Brian swapped out the *Atlantis* with the USS Eridanus (NCC-T117), a design from the fan site starfleet-museum.org  and adjusted the ship's history to match. In the original mission, the *Atlantis* disappeared during the Earth-Romulan War while the *Eridanus* disappeared about twenty years after the conclusion of the war. The *Atlantis* was an explorer ship while the *Eridanus* was a transport vessel assigned to providing equipment and supplies to colonies and facilities.