MENTHAR CORRIDOR — The USS Yarahla has been stolen by a crew of Starfleet officers determined to continue the search for the missing USS Gorkon.
In breaking news, the Luna-class USS Yarahla — one of the vessels involved in the search for the USS Gorkon — has been stolen by a group of Starfleet officers and civilian accomplices. After setting a course that took them into the sensor shadow of a nearby star, the Yarahla appears to have engaged its quantum slipstream drive. Its whereabouts are currently unknown, and Starfleet has mobilised a fleet to capture the renegade vessel.
Rumours continue to persist that Starfleet was premature in calling off the official search. When asked for a comment, Captain Henshaw, the commander of the search and rescue fleet stated, “The search for the Gorkon was thorough and conducted by experienced officers. We are regrettably confident that Gorkon has been lost.”
“Captain’s log, stardate… uh… I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ve lost all sense of time; with no end in sight, the days are blurring into each other. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I actually slept in my own bed, rather than the couch in my ready room.
“When Erik Jansen placed a king’s ransom on our heads, we were forced to flee from the Helase, a Ferengi casino-ship-cum-mobile-black-market, without anything to show for ourselves. Without the chance to complete negotiations, our deflector is still critically damaged, forcing us to travel at speeds of warp five or less.
“With few appealing options, we decided that our best course of action was to head toward the site of a massive battle from the war, now little more than a graveyard of derelicts. It’s a journey that should have only taken us four days, had we been able to use our normal cruising speed, but instead required nearly three weeks.
“Three weeks, and that was before before a catalogue of diversions and obstacles in our path. We had to detour and spend a week hiding from a patrol fleet in the orbit of a pulsar. Two weeks were added the ship was damaged in a pirate ambush. A few more days were spent gathering raw foodstuffs from a M-class planet. One of our cargo bays is now a makeshift refrigerator, completely dedicated to the nutritious and utterly tasteless flora we’ve gathered. It is, as many of my crew are fond of pointing out, very much like eating cardboard for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“Now we’re here, things are going little better. Commander Blair is leading a team to scavenge for consumables: food, medical supplies, dilithium… anything we could run out of. They didn’t even manage to reach a derelict before their shuttle was hit by something, and we’re not sure what. Some kind of cloaked mine? It physically damaged the shuttle, not to mention some of its occupants. At least they were able to right themselves and get underway again.
“Lieutenant Commander Sevo had more success, finding parts and supplies aboard a Galaxy-class hulk. Even her team suffered for their attempts, with several injured in a booby-trap. Something very odd is going on aboard that ship, and when they returned to the shuttle they found it had somehow escaped its moorings and was tumbling away, out in space.
“Meanwhile, I took a team out in the captain’s yacht to chase a unicorn — a cloaking device. There are a few Klingon ships in the graveyard, and we’re hoping that with a combination of modified sensors and probes, we’ll be able to find a functional cloak. If there’s one to be found, that is.
“This universe had taught me well. I don’t hold out any hope.”