Star Trek: Tirpitz

As the last of the repairs was being made to the Tirpitz, Admiral T’nae called me into a meeting to discuss our next assignment.  During long-range scans of Romulan space, Starfleet had detected the presence of a Borg sphere.  They dispatched the USS Nobel to claim the sphere and remove the ship’s offensive and defensive systems before the Romulans had the chance to do so themselves.  Unfortunately, the Romulans captured both the Nobel and the sphere.  Because we had been successful in our rescue of the Nobel and her crew, Starfleet now wanted us to complete the Nobel’s previous mission.   

Battling the Romulan patrols

Starfleet Intelligence believed that they had located the sphere in the Pilatus system, far from any loyal Romulan planets in case something went wrong with their studies.  When we arrived in the system, it didn’t take us long to find what we were looking for.  We also found Romulan Birds of Prey guarding the sphere.  They engaged us as we closed to within scanning distance of the sphere.  We were able to successfully defend ourselves from the attack without suffering major damage.  We performed a detailed scan of the Borg ship, and Amy was able to help us with the analysis.  She informed us that the ship had already been stripped of its weapon systems.  We contacted Starfleet Command with our findings, and they gave orders to destroy the sphere.  They believed the Romulans had kept it after taking the weapons incase they had left something important behind needed to get the stolen systems working.  Destroying the sphere would make sure the Romulans wouldn’t get any more information from it.  With the Sphere’s shields offline, it only took a few torpedoes to destroy the derelict.  

Eliminating the Romulan defenses

With no Romulan ships in the system, we had no way of finding out where the Romulans had taken their stolen technology.  The only thing remaining in the system beside us was a Romulan communications satellite.  Mr. Scharf suggested that by reprogramming the satellite, we may be able to send a Romulan distress call.  Because of the value of the now destroyed Borg sphere, the Romulans would have to send a ship to investigate.  When that ship arrived, we could tag it with a modified probe that would allow us to track the ship back to where it had been sent from, and hopefully to where the Romulans were performing their weapons research.  I approved the plan and it worked like a charm.  We were soon led to the Hadrian system.  When we arrived, we found a pair of very elaborate bases constructed into a series of asteroids.  Both bases were well defended.  A small task force of Romulan ships were patrolling around the stations, and our sensors picked up a number of weapon satellites in strategic positions.  We had to clear the area of their defenses before it was safe enough to beam an away team down to the facility.  

Sneaking up on some guards

The away team’s orders were to access the Romulan computers and download as much of their research on Borg technology as possible.  Since T’Lol had proven to be so useful in cracking Klingon computer security, I assigned her to lead the away team to the station.  They moved carefully through the station, and took down several sets of guards before they could warn the rest of the station.  They reached the research station’s computer core without causing a major alert, which gave them plenty of time to hack into the system and recover the information we were looking for.  The data sent back to the Tirpitz showed just how far along the research projects had progressed.  Several weapons systems had been approved for experimental field testing.  The Romulans were modifying a number of warships to take advantage of the Borg technology.  We gathered all of the information we could access, but the location where the Romulan ships were being refitted was not in the notes.  The commander of research facility was probably the only person that knew that location.  T’Lol was able to use the computer to determine that the commander was stationed on the other base in the system.   

Heavy resistance

The other base was expecting us.  Maybe one of the defense ships we destroyed missed a scheduled check in.  Maybe they noticed the amount of information the away team had downloaded.  Whatever the reason, the away team met with heavy resistance.  We had to send a second away team to act as reinforcements.  Eventually, the away teams managed to make their way to the control center for the station, and found the Romulan commander.  The away team questioned him about what he knew, and he filled us in on the missing information.  He claimed that the ships were being modified at S’harien station.  He had such confidence in the weapons his people had worked on that he believed any force the Federation could send to stop construction would be destroyed.  Before we could ask him any more questions, he was beamed off the station.  

Trying to capture the commander

We had just enough time to beam the away team back from the station before we were confronted by the Romulan ship that had rescued the station commander.  They hailed us as a formality to inform us that we had crossed into Romulan space and would be destroyed for our trespassing.  We were forced to defend ourselves.  We attempted to disable the ship instead of destroy it.  I wanted to try to recover the commander so Starfleet Intelligence could question him better.  The Romulans had other plans however.  The ship exploded and our scans of the wreckage picked up no escape pods.  We contacted Starfleet Command to appraise them of the situation and to send them the information we had gathered before setting a course back to Federation space.  

Out of Character

Egad!  A Plotline!   

Up until this point, the Romulan story missions have been a little lacking in focus.  The impression I got was that the Federation believes the Romulans are researching weapons of some sort.  And there’s also been evidence to suggest that the Romulans are willing to exploit any advanced alien technology they’ve come across.  But I think this is the first mission where you get a real sense of just what the Romulans are planning to do.  I know there have been hints before that they have wanted to stage a major offensive into Federation space.  But at the time, I assumed it was in retaliation for what the player had been tricked into doing.  I guess what I’m really getting at is that this is the first time that the Romulan empire has actually felt like a threat to the Federation, and not just some former enemy that Starfleet has been bullying.