- (Holding position at 3 AU from) the planet Acebi, which is the fourth
planet of the Aorya system in the Gamma Quadrant.
Summary:
- 2393.01.08
Having been arrested for committing the worst crime possible on the planet Acebi (lying), the Away Team members found themselves overpowered by Adjudicators. After waking up in their cell, they quickly noticed that their equipment (comm. badges, tricorders, phasers and the Doctor's medkit) were missing. In addition, their fake necklaces and pendants, which had been replicated to allow the team to pose as Acebi citizens, had been replaced by real ones. It didn't take long for the Away Team to figure out that telling a lie was immediately punished by a rather painful electrical shock. Trying to remove the necklaces, which caused the shocks, resulted in a jolt as well.
When the Adjudicators came to question their prisoners, the Away Team members obviously couldn't tell the truth about their identities. Telling the Adjudicators that they actually came from a starship that was hiding somewhere in this system, could influence this pre-warp civilisations drastically. The Prime Directive applied here; they couldn't tell the truth.
But they couldn't lie, either. Deception of any kind was impossible, since the necklaces worked as an advanced lie detector and would zap the wearer senseless if he or she told a lie or wasn't being honest. Despite their predicament, however, the members of the Away Team kept their calm and tried to find a way out of the Temple of Truth they were being held in. Their planning turned out to be unnecessary, because, much to their own surprise, they were set free by the Adjudicators not long after they had been captured. The Adjudicators assured the Away Team that they would be under close surveillance, though. If they told another lie, the necklaces would punish them, so there was no further need to keep them in prison.
And so the Away Team was released into the unfamiliar streets of an Acebi city. Without their comm. badges and the rest of their equipment, the team was unable to contact the Borhyas in orbit, or the Atlantis. Furthermore, they feared that the Adjudicators might succeed in figuring out how to use the Starfleet equipment... If that happened, the Prime Directive would be broken. But the team couldn't go back to the Temple of Truth and just retrieve their equipment; what chance did five unarmed Starfleet officers have against an entire contingent of armed Adjudicators?
Now, the Away Team tries to blend in as well as possible, while trying to find out where exactly they are... And how to get back to the Atlantis.
The Atlantis, meanwhile, also wasn't devoid of trouble. An ion storm had formed and was sweeping through the system. The planet Acebi would be well-protected from the storm due to its atmosphere and magnetic field, and the Atlantis would be able to weather the storm as well, thanks to its advanced shields. The Borhyas, however, would not be so lucky. Holding position in a high orbit around Acebi, the unmanned Gamma Flyer was running without its shields up. Without shields, the small craft would be severely damaged by the storm. In an effort to prevent this from happening, Lieutenant Rofellian and Ensign Andrusia took a Runabout and quickly made their way towards the Borhyas to raise its shields manually.
Just before the storm hit the Atlantis, an Arrow class Runabout dropped out of Transwarp. Aboard this Transwarp Runabout, the USS Trill, was Lieutenant Una Andersson, CONN and former 2O of the Atlantis. She was coming back to the ship after an absence of a few months. Just in time, too, because Andersson's piloting skills came in handy when the storm hit the Atlantis heavier than predicted. When, fifteen minutes later, the storm had passed, the Atlantis turned out to have weathered the storm with relative ease; only a few systems had been damaged, and there were few injuries.
