Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 2.2 – Close Quarters) #Amalgaverse Who is Harven Zax and why does someone want him so badly? The orders don't say. The Enterprise is on her way, and Starfleet’s orders remain thin: deliver Harven Zax to a set of coordinates on the far side of the Expanse before the deadline and hand him over to whoever is waiting there.  The orders don’t say who. With time to kill, the crew gets its first real look at their guests. Harven Zax holds court in Ten Forward, regaling all with dubious tales of his own daring.  None of the dates or places in his stories quite line up, and he seems confident no one will notice. Lucinda Shockley, his bodyguard, has a deadpan wit and the air of someone you do not want to cross.  She shadows Zax, yet her eyes keep drifting to his young protégé, Milo.  Unrequited love, perhaps? Milo, for his part, keeps to the edges at first.  Once he opens up, however, he turns out to be quite knowledgeable about the border sector’s tangled history.  A true nerd. Oswin Robespierre has clearly never waited for anything in his life and is handling the novelty badly.  He complains about his quarters and keeps a sealed diplomatic pouch close at hand, refusing every offer to lock it in the ship’s secure vault. And then there’s Dunsel, clanking after everyone like an adopted stray.  Something is wrong with him.  He starts tasks and forgets them halfway through, and every so often he freezes, lights dimming, before shuffling on.  Data suspects damage to his memory core and offers to take a look, though the repair could shut him down for good. The orders say where to take Zax but not why he’s worth so much trouble.  Kirk isn’t satisfied.  If the Enterprise is going to protect this man, the crew needs to know who might come for him and why. Where do you start? A) Question Zax.  Go straight to the source and ask the man himself why he’s worth all this trouble. B) Ask Lucinda.  His bodyguard must know who has been coming after him, and why. C) Talk to Milo.  A protégé hears everything, and the shy but friendly young man may say more than his employer would. D) Press Robespierre.  He is the Federation’s man on this trip, and he likely knows what Starfleet is holding back. E) Fix Dunsel.  Help Data repair the little robot, knowing it could cost Dunsel what’s left of his memory. Choose! And recruit a crewmate. Share this with a fellow fan! TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission! See below for our Previously On recap - or check out the glorious Amalagaverse website: amalgaverse.link/index.html by @ugorur

Second Mission: The Delivery (Part 2.1 - Escape Velocity) #Amalgaverse The Enterprise shudders against the gravitational pull as Thor’s counter-field takes hold.  Her main deflector brightens, projecting a cone of light ahead of the ship.  Inside it, the warped starlight straightens, and a corridor of calm space slowly opens, narrow and trembling at the edges. Kirk orders full impulse.  The Enterprise presses forward, the deck shaking as her saucer pushes into the corridor.   From engineering, Scotty warns that the deflector is overheating and the field won’t last much longer. “Ninety seconds,”Data reports. The hull groans.  A console sparks. The saucer is in calm space now, but nacelles are still outside, and without them there is no warp. “Thirty seconds.” The nacelles slide across the threshold. “Warp speed.  Now!”orders Kirk. The Enterprise leaps to warp.  Behind her, the corridor collapses and the black hole is left with nothing. Scotty reports: “Deflector’s scorched, Captain, but she held.  Took everything she had, mind.  I’ll need a day with her before she does anything that fancy again.” With Harven Zax and his party safely aboard, the Enterprise sets course for the rendezvous on the other side of the expanse.  Starfleet’s deadline leaves just under fifty-five hours to get there. There are three ways to go, none of them safe. A) The Klingon corridor.  It’s the fastest route, a straight warp run with hours to spare.  It passes through the border territory of a Klingon Great House that purportedly wants Zax dead. B) The frontier.  A long warp detour around Klingon space that eats deep into your margin.  The space it crosses belongs to the Orion Syndicate and is full of bounty hunters who know exactly what Zax is worth. C) The expanse.  The shortest line on the map, but gravity shear makes warp impossible inside, so the ship has to cross at sublight and will arrive with almost no time to spare.  Nobody patrols it, which avoids the Klingons and the Syndicate, but there’s no backup to rely on if anything goes wrong. Choose! TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS so that you don't miss a step on this mission! See below for our Previously On recap - or check out the glorious Amalagaverse website: amalgaverse.link/index.html by @ugorur