7. Road to Perfection

* **Duration (Real time):** 25 April 2004 - 12 September 2004

In July the USS Valkyrie arrived at Pandora Station and the mission became a joint mission between the crews of the USS Valkyrie and Pandora Station
* **Duration (Game time):** 2391.04.24 - 2391.04.25 (role-played) / 2391.04.30
* **Location:** Pandora Station/USS Valkyrie
* **Synopsis**

An alien race, known as the Kotarrani, is worshipping the Borg (who crashlanded on their planet several years ago), and seeks to join them. Their search has led them to Pandora Station.

## Stardates 2391.04.24-2391.04.30

After a 6-day test flight, the Epimetheus safely returned to Pandora Station, where the crew got back to their daily business. However, the 'normal routine' would soon be broken, because a vessel approached them... It was a Borg vessel!

Upon receiving hails, the crew saw that the inhabitants of this vessel were an alien race called the Kotarrani, who seemed to worship the Borg. They had found residual transwarp signatures, and thought the Borg, whom they called The Holified Ones, would be on Pandora.

Now, the crew is stuck with another dilemma: either help those aliens, who want to get to the Borg, to join them in their "Blessed Togetherness", as they call it, (and then lead them to a certain death), or tell them about their experiences with the Borg... and let them judge for themselves...

Captain Janssens has decided that it would be best to break the Prime Directive, and tell these Kotarrani about the true nature of the Borg... To do this, 7 of these aliens were invited to come over to Pandora Station. The Kotarrani were enthusiastic: they wanted to find their Holified Ones. But what they will hear will probably not be something they'll enjoy...

The 7 Kotarrani, known as 1 of 27 (or First) down to 7 of 27, (or Seventh) arrived in the Observation Lounge. Captain Janssens, Commander Holmes, Lt.Cmdr Jalando and Ensign Tek (the new ACOUNS) joined them. During this meeting with these aliens, the Pandora Command Team and Ensign Tek learned that these Kotarrani desperately want to be like the Borg in every way they know.

However, because of the differences in social structure between the Kotarrani and the Pandora people, these conversations almost ended before they began. Ensign Tek's idea, however, saved the day: he suggested that, like the Kotarrani, the Pandora crew should follow their command structure to the letter. At least for now. This put the Kotarrani more at ease, which Ensign Tek made use of: he began to make contact with the Seventh, and offered to take her on a tour on his own. Both the First and Commander Holmes agreed to this.

Captain Janssens walked away from the meeting early on, after having talked to a yeoman. There seemed to be a message from Starfleet, that he needed to answer.

After a difficult conversation, Commander Holmes and Lt.Cmdr Jalando finally made an agreement with the Kotarrani, to show them the station. However, when they were just on their way, the Fifth suffered from what seemed to be a malfunctioning implant, and collapsed to the floor. The First didn't seem to care: he thought it was all planned by the Holified Ones.

Meanwhile, in sickbay, Ensign Morabulu had found indications of a radiation leak. CMO Truesdale was the first victim of this leak: she collapsed to the ground, only to wake up nauseous, and a bit confused. The race was on to find the exact place of the radiation leak, and seal it, before more casualties were being reported in.

Sickbay seemed to be the place on the station to be, because there sure were a lot of people. Lt.Cmdr Jalando had beamed in, together with the injured Kotarrani (the Fifth, as he was called.) This alien's implants had malfunctioned, so the doctors saw no other option than to remove these implants.

Luckily, Ensign Morabulu was able to fix the radiation leak. Not without more people suffering from radiation poisening though. Still, now that this little emergency was over, people across the station could finally get some rest.

Counsellor Tek however, together with the Kotarran called Tin'rala, didn't go to sleep that quick. They had gathered in Tek's quarters, together with Aslam Izhal, Tek's daughter. They kept on talking about the Kotarrani's religion and about who the Holified Ones really were.

The next morning, Lt.Cmdr Jalando, who had the night shift, received a message which stated that a shuttle, containing two new crewmembers - ASTC Ensign Kaosu Hikaru, and Security Officer Ensign Mera Lanyss - was on its way to the station. When these security people arrived, Jalando took them, and Petty Officer Zang, to have breakfast with him. However, this breakfast was soon interrupted, by Security Officer Vankirk being beaten by angry civilians, who thought that issuing a red alert at times wasn't good for business. Vankirk quickly got beamed to Sickbay, while Jalando and Kaosu looked for the person who hit Vankirk. They didn't get far however, because they were called to sickbay by Ensign Mera (who had to take care of an old Ferengi-nemesis of her), saying that the Kotarrani had entered sickbay.

When Jalando and Kaosu entered sickbay, they found out that the First wasn't very happy with the Pandora people saving the Fifth. The Fifth himself, seeing how the First reacted, made a decision to stop believing in the Holified Ones, and to protect the Pandora crew. Jalando, together with Kaosu and Mera, were able to get all the Kotarrani out of sickbay, towards conference room 2, where they would give information about the Borg.

A conversation started: the First seemed to be holding on to his beliefs, although other Kotarrani were starting to doubt. In an attempt to let the Kotarrani see the facts, and only the facts, of the Federation's encounters with the Borg, Jalando had ordered Virt to impersonate a Borg, and tell the information that way, hoping the Kotarrani would accept the facts more, when told by one of their Holified Ones.

However, nothing seemed to be able to convince the First that the Borg were not the Holified Ones. Not even horrific images shown by Virt, about the atrocities the Borg had done. Not even a simulated assimilation attempt, or some very convincing talks could convince him, the Second, or the Fourth. However.. the Third and Sixth switched sides, and joined the Fifth in his little rebellion against Kotarrani beliefs.

ACOUNS Tek had also convinced the Seventh that the Borg weren't the true Holified Ones, using parts of the Kotarrani's own Sacred Scrolls to convince her. When he tried to do the same with the First, Second, and Fourth however, it didn't work: they simply refused to accept these 'lies', as they called them.

The First got so angry, that he, together with the few followers who were left, walked away from the conference room, to beam back to their ship. Tek however, didn't give up that easily, and tried one last possibility: the Right of Assessment. It was an ancient Kotarrani law, mentioned by the Sacred Scrolls, which enabled Kotarrani to challenge the leadership of the leaders, if those leaders were proven to be fools. Yet, the First, and his followers, didn't see the First as a fool. Not even the Seventh, who now went by the name of Tin'rala, saw the First as a fool. So unfortunately, this law only made the First more angry...

When the First, Second and Fourth had beamed back to their ship, they saw that Pandora Station had send them information about the Borg. Quickly deleting this messages as 'lies', the First kept the rest of his crew believing in the Borg as the Holified Ones...

Meanwhile, in Sickbay, Dr. Vok, Mr. Ja'al and Ms. Zang find a possible way to slow down the nanoprobes they have discovered in the First and the Second. However, Ms. Zang suffers from a Telepathic Memory Rape, accidentally caused by Mr. Vankirk, who was just trying out his telepathic powers. Ms. Zang almost falls into a coma...

After this busy morning, a shuttle arrives, carrying Captain Main, his son Toad, and Ensigns Denton and Kaeter.. they arrive at Pandora Station because the USS Valkyrie is going to dock there. Captain Janssens and Captain Main went to the messhall, and discussed the situation that was going on on the station right now. However, they should have done that at a different location, because now the ears of a very curious reporter were listening along..

That afternoon, at about 1600 hours, a message is received that the USS Valkyrie will arrive. Captains Janssens and Main await the coming of the Valkyrie, along with Lt.Cmdr Jalando, who would like to meet the Valkyrie crew. When the Valkyrie is finally docked, and the airlocks finally open, they see a group of 2: Commander Maiek, and Lt.Cmdr Al'Evering... both from the Valkyrie. They came on board with only 2 persons, because they've seen the Borg/Kotarrani ship orbiting Pandora Station...

When the situation is explained to the Valkyrie officers, shore leave seems to wait for the crew of the Prometheus-class ship. However, this rest is quickly disturbed when the First beams both the Kotarrani who didn't believe the Borg to be the Holified Ones, and some Borg from the Valkyrie, to their ship. That ship immediately jumped into Warp, on a course for the Kotarrani homeworld...

Both crews knew something had to be done. So, the Valkyrie crew had to come back to the ship, and together with Captain Janssens, ACOUNS Tek, Dr. Vok and XGO Underhill, they went away, on a mission to stop the Kotarrani ship from reaching Kotarra.

On that Kotarrani ship, (the Sacred Hope One as they call it,) the Borg have assimilated one of the Kotarrani... or at least they tried to. However, it failed miserably. J'ony Septus, one of the Kotarrani who refused to believe the Borg were gods, died in this faulty assimilation. The First didn't seem to care, but some of the other Kotarrani, like the Second, did. Especially when the Second saw his cousin dying because of a faulty assimilation, he knew the Borg had to be stopped.

On Pandora Station, Ensign Muleya had discovered an open communicationschannel, which was used to transmit everything that happened at the Kotarrani ship, to Pandora. This allowed the remaining Pandora crew to have at least some idea what was happening... Not that there were a lot of the senior crew left on Main Ops... Commander Holmes and the new CEO, Mr. Rixx, had gone to the Epimetheus, to prepare her for launch, just in case the Kotarrani ship could jump to transwarp. It took Holmes, Rixx and Morabulu about 15 minutes to have the ship prepared, but when it was, the dockingclamps were released, and the Epimetheus stood by, in case she was needed.

On the Valkyrie's bridge, the new Captain, Captain Main, had to get used to this ship. However, because of the fact that they went on this mission this quickly, he had to adjust real quick. The Valkyrie's crew didn't seem to function as a whole, causing some interesting conflicts between Captain Main, CEO Dumai, and EO Gnone. Nothing that couldn't be handled though...

On the Kotarrani ship, the former Borg drone known as Carrie, teamed up with the Hy'mar (the Second) and Tin'rala (the former Seventh), to disable the warpcore. They succeeded, and dropped out of warp. On the Kotarrani bridge, where the First had helped Borg drone Lonn to repair the console which controlled transwarp, ordered weapons to be brought online. When the Valkyrie also dropped out of warp, the Sacred Hope One fired at them... with no damage at all to the Valkyrie. It appeared that Carrie had also sabotaged the disruptors...

Still, the First kept firing on the Valkyrie, as it got closer and closer to the Sacred Hope One, ready to beam everyone on board. The Valkyrie quickly disabled the Kotarrani's shield, and beamed all the Kotarrani to the Prometheusclass ship... just before the Sacred Hope One entered transwarp.

Finally... the Kotarrani have been beamed on board the Valkyrie, and were then delivered back to Pandora Station, where the USS Nexus would pick them up, and take them back to their planet. That would, however, probably result in a civil war, because there were now 2 groups: one group that still believed the Borg were the Holified Ones, and another group, which believed just the opposite: that the Borg were ruthless killing machines.

Once the crew had said goodbye to the Kotarrani, the USS Nexus left Pandora Station. Shortly thereafter, the USS Valkyrie departed. And only a day or so later, the USS Epimetheus, which had been assigned to Pandora Station for such a long time, departed as well. Under the command of Captain Janssens, it set out to explore a region of the Gamma Quadrant which hasn't been explored yet. They would first stop by Earth though, to bring home Commander Holmes, who has been assigned on another transwarpproject.

This left Pandora Station without it's Captain and First Officer. However, the last task that Captain Janssens performed as CO of Pandora Station, was promoting several members of his crew: Mr. Tek became COUNS and Ltjg, OPS Nel got promoted to Ltjg, CMO Truesdale received a promotion to full Lieutenant, and 2O/CSO Jalando was promoted to Commander, and First Officer of Pandora Station. So... when Janssens left, Pandora Station was his. At least... until the new Captain would arrive...