Back to the Badlands

Posted on Wed Sep 16th, 2026 @ 3:51pm by Captain Mikoto Misaka & Commander Alisha Reno & Lieutenant Jane Sinclair & Lieutenant Ami Rori & Lieutenant JG Kenneth Hunt & Lieutenant JG Erskin Mon & Lieutenant JG Feeva Drylo
Edited on on Wed Sep 16th, 2026 @ 3:52pm

1,929 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Preparations
Location: USS Ermiana Various

The doors of the ready room swished open and Mikoto strode out onto the bridge. "Helm. Set a course for the Badlands. Engage at maximum warp." She ordered simply as she crossed over to her chair and sat down.

"Aye Captain, setting course for the Badlands." The lieutenant at the helm replied. His fingers ran across the console quickly.

"Lieutenant Mon. Push all available power to the engines. We have a stolen Cardassian ship to catch." Mikoto said.

"Aye, Captain," Erskin replied without hesitation, his fingers flying over the Operations console. Deep inside him, the Mon symbiont gave a sharp, anxious flutter at the mention of the Badlands, but Erskin silenced it. "Transfer complete," he informed as the symbiont kept its anxious queries going. "We've got an additional two units of speed, ma'am."

"Good. Go to yellow alert." Mikoto ordered. "Have everyone report to stations. I expect this Cardassian ship isn't going to make this easy for us.... Speaking of which. Did the Argus array detect them at all?"

Erskin masked Mon’s anxious internal noise with cold professionalism, "I'm transferring the telemetry directly to your console now."

Mikoto turned to Eila. "I want this ship battle ready. We believe that the Cardassian ship is actually being operated by the Maquis. And now, they have a huge arsenal at their command."

Kenneth hearing the news that the Maquis had managed to acquire a stolen ship from the Cardassian said quite a bit about their movement. "If I may speak up. Large ships have never fared well in the badlands. And they don't get any bigger than a Galaxy class."

Erskin said nothing. He kept his eyes locked on the readouts of his panel, letting the chatter wash over him. Beneath his ribs, the Mon symbiont churned with memory, but Erskin simply absorbed the threat assessment, listening in silent, calculated focus as the Bridge debated.

Eila looked towards Mikoto.

[Two Hours Later]

The Ermiana dropped out of warp on the edge of the Badlands. The huge swirls of yellow and golden plasma filled the ships viewscreen. This area of space was known for its unpredictable plasma storms which were not only dangerous, but could become deadly to any ship in the region.

"Does this mean you wish for the Battle Bridge to be prepped for Saucer Separation?" She asked.

Before the Captain could answer, Erskin's console beeped rapidly. The Trill leaned forward, reading the warning message carefully before announcing, "Sensor resolution is degrading rapidly near the border, Captain. Plasma storm turbulence is already registering."

Quietly, Feeva had left the bridge to head to Medical. Sounded like they would receive casualties so she better prep the morgue, too. She shook her head; she was too high strung for this.

"If we need saucer separation. We'll do that if its needed." Mikoto said. "Right now, we need to catch that ship."

Erskin tapped his interface, adjusting the sensor sweep filters to counter the localized interference. "I can stabilize our forward array for another thirty seconds before plasma shear distorts the primary telemetry, Captain," he reported, his voice crisp and steady. Beneath his skin, Mon surged with raw anxiety, but Erskin channelled the symbiont’s unease into razor-sharp focus. "If they're hiding in the thermals, we'll find them."

Hunt simply sighed. Finding them wasn't going to be difficult. Being able to go in after them and capture was the real question. It did them no good, if the Ermiana ended up a drift due to those thermals.

Erskin’s hands blurred over his controls, isolating thermal bands. "Forward sensors locked," he announced, overriding Mon's rising panic with cold determination. "I'm tracking ion turbulence... they entered the plasma stream ten seconds ago!"

"That seems far too coincidental. They had hours to get ahead of us. This doesn't feel right at all." Misaka said as she pulled herself up out of her chair and took a few steps forward. "Surely by now their Ion trail would have degraded." Even if their ship was faster, the Cardassian Ship still had plenty of time to get a good head start, by almost a day. Unless they had conveniently stopped and waited for them to catch up, which Misaka highly doubted.

"Scan for anything that might be emitting those readings. It could be a decoy." Misaka said.

Erskin recalibrated the primary sensor array, ignoring the symbiont’s rising alarm inside his stomach. "I'm sorry, Captain... the ion trace lacks standard engine resonance. It’s a localized beacon, probably activated upon detecting Ermiana on approach. We should be cautious; it could be a mine or related danger."

"If its rigged to explode, lets not give it a chance. Back us away from it." Misaka ordered. "Can we get into its systems remotely. We may be able to see if it is communicating with the Cardassian Ship."

There was the sound of a yawn at the engineering console, followed by the sound of someone shaking their head hard as Ami forced herself to remain awake. It was a pity caffeine wasn’t liked by her symbiont connection, but it was what it was, “I’m piggybacking a system interrogation code via one of the standard Cardassian communications frequencies…” She said in a tired voice. She’d been aboard for a few months now, but hadn’t met much of the crew. “I’m in… It’s got a proximity detonator, set to throw a massive EMP at the target, but it would send a message out to warn whoever set it up, whether it’s another mine or the ship itself. I’m guessing another mine, since there’s nothing in the programming to update the destination telemetry.”

"Can you get a fix on where its sending the message? A set of co-ordinates, or some sort of comm frequency that we can track?" Misaka asked as she moved towards the rear Engineering station to have a look at the information herself, or help where she could.

"It's not telling me where it's going to send it, just a physical addon to the mine. The act of triggering it sets off the thing and it uses the directional pulse to power the one-time transmitter." Ami chewed her upper lip thoughtfully, "We can eliminate any direction with an active plasma storm within... ten thousand kilometers of a base course, probably, or..." She looked up, "We could just set it off."

Misaka crossed her arms as she pondered for a moment. "I don't want to risk the Ermiana getting too close to it..." She said. "What about, we use a probe that emits a false power signature. Trick the mine into thinking its a starship? Once it sends out the communication pulse, we can track where it goes?"

"Should work." Ami shrugged and stifled another yawn, "If it goes off, I can track it."

Misaka nodded. "Prepare a probe." She ordered simply.

The junior officer at the helm programmed a probe to the torpedo tube and tied its flight systems into her console. “Ready, Captain.”

"Raise shields, and go to yellow alert." She ordered. Best to be cautious, as this could either work in their favour or go badly very quickly. "Launch probe."

"Shields up and at yellow alert," Hunt responded from tactical.

At the helmsperson’s command, the probe launched and steered toward its destination.

The probe exited the tube, oriented itself and activated its engines as it began the approach to the mine. “I’ve got activation of sensors…” Ami said softly, “The mine is tracking thr probe.” Seconds passed, then there was a surge of visible light and the mine exploded, the probes systems shutting down immediately, already affected by the currents and heading towards one of the plasma funnels, “Message was sent as it exploded. Bearing is two-oh-one relative to where the mine was.”

Misaka turned away from the Engineering console with Ami. "Helm. Set a course. Two-oh-one Mark three two five." Misaka ordered. "Engage at warp six."

“Noooo!” Ami squealed automatically, “Not in the plasma storm!”

“Two-oh-one Mark three-two-five, aye,” replied the helm officer. She understood the engineer’s concerns but it would be fine. Surely. “Warp six.”

Ami's eyes opened wide and her hand reached out towards the corner of her console and slapped at the red button that would shut down the warp core. Of course, it wouldn't do it on the first hit, just in case of accident. Once, twice, three times and the power noticeably dimmed on the bridge as the reaction in the chamber down in engineering slowed rapidly to a halt.

"Its ok Lieutenant. We're well clear of the plasma storms." Misaka said.

"It isn't okay!" Ami's eyes remained wide, "It's not just the plasma storms, Captain, it's the gravimetric shear and the subspace eddies! We can't maintain a stable warp bubble and if we can't, we'd get torn apart." She shook her head wildly, "Nuh uh, Captain."

Misaka let out a sigh. "Helm, once we're clear of the area. Then engage." She revised her orders.

"Yes, ma'am," the helm officer replied.

Ami sighed in relief and keyed in the restart procedure before updating the map of the area they were in with the path of the transmission, “If we skirt the storms, I predict the next location for the next point, whether ship or mine is in this general area.” She circled a spot well within the storm, “It could be before then, or after, I really don’t know. The best bet, if you wanted, would be to follow the path… inside the storm.” She swallowed hard. “But there was an absolute maximum it could have gone in there.”

"I'm overlaying the transmission vector onto our Tactical display now, Captain," Erskin reported from the Ops station as he worked to recalibrate the grid as power restored. Filtering out the storm’s plasma noise to chart Ami’s trajectory data, he continued, "By adjusting our Navigational Deflector to pulse at inverse phase frequencies, we can track the signal deeper into the storm using Impulse Engines without risking Warp Bubble collapse."

Overlooking the tactical display, the information suddenly appeared at his station. "I have access Captain. Something should come up soon enough."

"Lets get moving." Misaka said with a slight tone of frustration in her voice.

Erskin’s hands moved over the Operations console with practised precision, overriding the remaining secondary alerts. "Deflector inverse-phase pulse is active. Filters are holding, and forward telemetry is feeding cleanly to Helm and Tactical." Beneath his sternum, the young Mon symbiont stirred in a fresh wave of instinctual panic at the towering wall of golden plasma filling the main viewscreen. "Sensors are maintaining lock on the transmission trail," he added, scanning the real-time data streams as the Ermiana pushed into the turbulent perimeter. "Entering the storm envelope... now."

The Ermiana manoeuvred slowly, occasionally shaking due to impacts from the plasma storms. Misaka gripped the edge of the arms of her seat as they began to go deeper into the Badlands. She was just hoping that they would be able to catch the ship soon. Meanwhile, she was deep in thought at how to deal with the situation once they found the ship. How were they going to get the weapons back?

Posting by:

Captain Mikoto Misaka
Commanding Officer

Commander Eila Juutilainen 'Illu'
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Jane Sinclair
Chief Flight Control Officer

Lieutenant Ami Rori
Chief Engineer

Lieutenant JG Kenneth Hunt
Assistant Chief Security/Tactical Officer

Lieutenant JG Erskin Mon
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant JG Feeva Drylo
Chief Medical Officer

Commander Alisha Reno
Executive Officer

RSS Feed