USS FIRESTORM

The shakedown is aborted sooner then anticipated, as difficulty in the newly obtained Chin’toka system requires Admiral Ross to dispatch the Firestorm on her first mission.

While searching for the Jamestown, crewmembers aboard the Firestorm begin to disappear. Security Officer Rr’Vellan and Science Officer Maxwell Kepler disappear, along with Doctor Shea-Lynn Moody’s daughter and cat. It is then discovered that the four had been transported onto an alien vessel, where an alien experiment gives the cat, Loki, telepathy.

Using Loki’s telepathy, Captain Polaron is able to learn what became of the Jamestown and recover his crew. The Firestorm then returns to Starbase 375, where the crew enjoys a brief shore leave.

There, the Firestorm’s crew discover the derelict USS Carpathia. A small team is dispatched via shuttle to survey the Carpathia, while Crewman Gabe Hawkins is captured by a Dominion spy operating on the Firestorm.

The team, lead by Chief Science Officer John Steel, discover the Carpathia to be “infected” by small creatures, later called “Grebens.” The Grebens have damaged most of the Carpathia’s systems, making the ship useless in the war effort against the Jem’Hadar. However, Steel’s team is able to recover a small portion of the Carpathia’s crew.

The Grebens follow Steel’s team back to the Firestorm, where tr’Dezrek’s security team neutralizes them. However, it is then discovered that the Grebens in fact exist naturally in an anti-matter based universe, and will annihilate the Firestorm if not removed from the ship. In effort to prevent the same fate from befalling other Federation starships, the Grebens are sent back to their own universe. The Carpathia is then destroyed to ensure none of the Grebens survived.

Gabe Hawkins returns to the Firestorm after being transformed into a Human/Jem’Hadar hybrid warning of a pending Dominion attack, but his warning proves obsolete when, upon emerging from the pulsar’s interference, it is learned that the Dominion War has ended. The Firestorm returns to Starbase 375 for much-needed shoreleave.

In the meantime, the Firestorm and Starbase personnel begin to show signs of strange behavior, from bar fights to minor personality clashes. It is discovered that an alien device rests in orbit around the station, affecting the Starfleet personnel on a psionic level.

While investigating the device, Maxwell Kepler is discovered to be a Section 31 agent after he turns the device on Takashi Iwajawa—resulting in Takashi brutally murdering Kepler. Due to the circumstances, Iwajawa is transferred back to the Firestorm’s security team, but is unable to return to his duties. Steel is placed temporarily as the Firestorm’s executive officer in Takashi’s place.

The Firestorm is forced out of the race when the USS Terra Nova falls under attack by Ferengi vessels. In gratitude, a Section 31 agent on the Terra Nova transmits several documents onto the Firestorm, detailing information regarding Takashi and Kepler.

A small shuttle is sent to the surface of the asteroid in search of Acerd and his traveling companions. In the meantime, Darun Mela works with the station’s staff in preparation for the asteroid’s arrival.

Steel’s team discovers a machine-beast living in the heart of the Asteroid. The creature unleashes spider-like robots to fight the crew, in an attempt to protect itself long enough to reach the space station. The spiders even begin to spread to the Firestorm, leaping through space and tearing through the hull.

Lead by tr’Dezrek, the Firestorm’s crew is able to drive back the spiders, but not before the machine enters the Firestorm’s computers. Also controlling the thoughts of Counselor Patience, the machine-intelligence manages to assume a form through the use of the Firestorm’s EMH, and holds Doctor Faircloth’s newborn son as a hostage, in bargain for the Firestorm’s command codes.

Patience manages to overcome the machine’s control, returning the infant to his mother, and allowing the Firestorm’s medical staff to deactivate the EMH. Commander Iwajawa frees the ship from the machine-intelligence, and Lieutenant Gildan destroys the Asteroid, saving the space station.

As things settle down, the Firestorm takes on additional crew, and Faircloth and tr’Dezrek bid their farewells as they return to earth to raise their child in a safer environment. The Firestorm heads to Deep Space Eight for repairs, shoreleave, and additional crew transfers.

Gildan assumes command of a Klingon Bird of Prey, allowing the Firestorm’s senior crew to pursuit the Firestorm. In the meantime, Darun, Janus, and Terri collaborate on the Firestorm to undermine the Maquis plan, in an attempt to disable the Firestorm.

The Firestorm’s crew arrives after Darun, et al, are able to disable the Firestorm. It is then discovered that Jannara was in league with the Maquis, and Rr’Vellan reveals himself as a JAG agent assigned to keep watch over Jannara. Unfortunately, he is unable to capture Jannara before she escapes with the Klingons.

The Firestorm limps back to Starbase 375 to finish the repairs started at Deep Space 8, in effort to allow the ship to reach its new posting at Deep Space 10.

One of Lerit’s science officers ventures out onto the Firestorm’s hull, placing an unknown device on the hull. Shortly thereafter, a Dyson Sphere emerges from the anomaly, which closes behind the Sphere.

The Firestorm is contacted by one of the individuals aboard the Sphere, a Klingon, who requests that the Captain beam down the Sphere until they figure out how the Firestorm brought them to the location. In the meantime, Iwajawa, Lerit, Gil Drell (of Deep Space Ten), Rr’Vellan, and Doctor Terri beam down to the Sphere to undercover its secrets. They soon discover that the Sphere, in fact, belongs to the Orion Syndicate.

The Captain in danger as a hostage of the Syndicate, Rr’Vellan leads an all out offensive against the Syndicate to recover the Captain. Lerit, in the mean time, devises a means to return the Sphere to where it returns.

In response to Rr’Vellan’s team, the Syndicate prepares to fire an energy beam, powered by massive amounts of solar energy, at the Firestorm. However, moments before they could fire, Lerit’s team reopens the subspace rift, sending the Sphere back to whence it came. Takashi seals the rift with the Firestorm’s torpedoes, and the Firestorm resumes course for Deep Space Ten.

Synopsis: (patrol #3 - Crashed onto Arexjay. Partial summary follows)

The USS Firestorm responds to a distress signal in the RXJ-1856 system. Upon arrival, the ship is ambushed by older-style Klingon Birds of Prey and a Ferengi Marauder, and is disabled while driving the attackers off. The Firestorm moves into orbit over the second planet of the RXJ-1856 system, a frozen Class-N planet.

When a power surge overloads the warp reactor, the Firestorm's crew is evacuated, while the warp core is ejected. The breach forces the Firestorm to make a crash landing on a small island on RXJ-1856, where the escape pods gather. The damage to the Firestorm from the attack and subsequent crash make repairs unlikely, and the Firestorm crew begins attempting to survive on the ice-covered world.

The matter is made difficult by the presence of a hive of insects which inhabit the island, discovered when the Firestorm crew sets out in search of raw matter to use with the replicators. Lieutenant Appleton is attacked by the creatures, who surround him in a shell of bugs, while avoiding the plantlife the team had set out to recover.

The Firestorm's crew is eventually rescued by the crew of the USS Ticonderoga and the crew of the USS Sumter, and is transported to Starbase 514 for debriefing.

Synopsis: While Polaron waits for the results from his court martial regarding the loss of the Firestorm, Rr'Vellan sets out on an non-sanction assault against the base of operations for those responsible for the attack on the Firestorm, later discovered to be the Orion Syndicate. The situation is complicated when the team discovers a unit of the Romulan Tal-Shiar operating on Kyyp as well, attempting to rescue prisoners taken by the Syndicate.

The Firestorm crew agrees to assist the Tal-Shiar in recovering their remaining operative, who is being held captive in the Orion Syndicate base, and sets out with two Romulan guides to access the Syndicate base by way of caverns connecting to the base's sewer system. Things go awry when a creature, called the "Legendary Black Beast of A'rrig" by the Romulans, appears and attacks one of the Romulans. The Romulan, Laestac, is presumed dead, and the Firestorm team proceeds to cut their way into the sewer system.

There, they discover a hidden cache of weapons and narcotics, and use the storage facility as their base of operations. After placing explosives around the base's sewer system, where the fumes will help in detonating the devices, Acerd leads a team to create a diversion involving several small ships in the Syndicate's hangar, while Rr'Vellan, McGuire, and Lela head out to rescue the prisoner.

After escaping a trash compactor, Rr'Vellan and McGuire rescue the prisoner, while Acerd's diversion sends the Orion Syndicate into chaos. The remaining teams beam up to the escape craft Acerd acquired, and Rr'Vellan and McGuire, with the former prisoner in tow, detonate the base, escaping through the sewer system and barely escaping the fiery explosion that filled the sewers.

The Romulan prisoner, along with an injured Lela, are returned to the Romulan ship in orbit, and the Firestorm crew sets out to rendezvous with the S.S. Excalibur.

In the meantime, rumors begin to spread about the return of the Firestorm, thanks to an experimental procedure being developed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.