A Rock and a Hard Place (SL345)

## A Rock and a Hard Place

In Y120, a Seltorian Tribunal task force pursuing a Tholian Dyson sphere entered the Milky Way galaxy somewhere in Romulan space. The task force was low on fuel and supplies after its long voyage, but its passage of the energy barrier at the edge of the Milky Way exacerbated the situation considerably by destroying the supply vessels accompanying the mission and badly damaging many of the other ships. While repairs were being made (using up most of the remaining supplies) the least damaged ships were sent to reconnoiter nearby systems from which no obvious signs of intelligence were detected. A month or so later, the scouting ships reported back. One had found an uninhabited system with an asteroid belt where the task force could easily mine the raw materials it needed to build up its stockpiles.

The scouting report on the system was in error in that while the system itself was derelict, having no habitable planets, a Jindarian caravan known as Falkirk's Fiefdom had occupied its asteroid belt. On detecting the approach of the scouting ship, the caravan had gone inert to avoid detection, as it and its progenitors had done many times before in other systems. While the Seltorian ship did detect warp trails, it detected no recent ones and had no reason to believe that an ambush or other opposing force might be concealed within the asteroids. Given the information, and comparing it to what the other reconnaissance ships reported, and aware of just how short on supplies they were, the Seltorian sages controlling the task force saw the asteroid belt of the system as their best choice. They reasoned at least in part that the asteroids would provide them concealment while they refilled their stockpiles, constructed new supply vessels, and conducted further reconnaissance in search of the Tholians they had tracked from their home galaxy.

Once they committed to moving to the system, the Seltorians had no other options as they did not have the supplies to go anywhere else, and were not disposed to attempt negotiations. The Jindarians, for their part, chose not to share the asteroid belt's resources. Just why is not really clear. Perhaps the pickings were just too slim for two parties; perhaps as was so often the case the Jindarians were just unwilling to share. Still, in the face of what was a completely alien force of unknown technology backed by the titanic Hive ship whose capabilities could only be guessed at, perhaps they were just being stubborn.

## Aftermath

This account comes from an asteroid miner named Michel Richerdson who survived the loss of the prospecting freighter he was serving on in Y207. He spent time with a caravan after a Jindarian salvage crew found him in the wreckage as the emergency life support system that had sustained him was about to collapse. Michel traveled with the Jindarians for most of the ensuing year before he was transferred to a small merchant vessel that had come to trade with the caravan. During his sojourn some members of the caravan told him a story (among other tales) of a battle that a caravan known as Felkirk's Fiefdom had fought with an unknown alien force. About two years after he was returned, the story he was retelling came to the attention of the Federation Galactic Intelligence Agency and he was tracked down and extensively interviewed for what he could remember of the tale.

It has to be noted that there is no independent verification of Michel's story. Michel was an asteroid miner, and had been so his entire life and had no military or intelligence experience. More than one Federation analyst was convinced that the Jindarians had re‑written an encounter with some other force to get the Federation to pay cash for the story.

The Jindarians themselves when asked about this story (and others) usually professed ignorance, although some caravans would acknowledge that there had been a caravan known as Felkirk's Fiefdom, but said no such caravan was currently operating. (It is unclear if the caravan still existed as an entity under a new name, or if it had broken up and its sub elements were absorbed by other caravans or became caravans in their own right, or some other disaster had befallen it.)

Thus the data presented here is simply a simulation based on an assumption of an early arrival of a Seltorian Hive ship in the Milky Way before the arrival of the *Burning Torch of Vengeance.* It is the best guess based on Michel's telling of the story from what he could remember. The Jindarians who told him the tale were not, themselves, witnesses to the event, so even the location of the battle is a guess. The story indicated that the Felkirk's Fiefdom caravan salvaged the scrap left over from the battle. They discovered cargo holds that were virtually empty not just in the shattered wrecks of the opposing warships, but in the huge and poorly armed ship that supported them, which led to the conclusion that the aliens continued to attack due to a need to gather resources. The battle took place in a system relatively near "the energy barrier" according to the tale, and the wrecks showed signs of recent damage and repair.

Taken together the various clues led to the simulation presented here, but it is not possible to know for certain if the event shown is accurate as even the respective orders of battle are mostly guesswork. Proposals that the aliens were an early Andromedan effort, or perhaps some kind of Juggernaut force, were rejected based on the description that the alien ships employed shields. The Jindarians did not provide any description of the crews of the alien ships to Michel. Given that contact had been made between the Jindarians in the Alpha Octant of the Milky Way and those of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud by the time the tale was told, the action might have actually happened in the Cloud (or even in the Omega Octant). It is even possible (although considered unlikely) that the event (if one occurred at all) may have even predated the arrival of the Holdfast sphere, i.e., even the year of the battle is pure guesswork. The only thing certain is that the Jindarian side of the story (the only side known) was that none of the alien ships survived. What really happened, if anything at all, may never be known.

## References

1. ↑ Template:Cite book/CAptain's Log 51
2. ↑ Template:Cite book/CAptain's Log 51
3. ↑ Template:Cite book/CAptain's Log 51