2389/04

Enroute to Messier 4 the USS Traveller encounters an intergalactic Ark Ship of the Morning Star Imperium. Upon approaching within 6 light hours of the Ark, the Traveller's warp core goes offline. It appears as though they have entered a field effect that renders high energy reaction to become inert. Warp plasma is now sludge-like, harmless in texture but useful for energy generation. Operating on battery power, the USS Traveller approaches the Ark.

But unknown to the Travellers, the Ark's automated defences are online. One of the lighter weapons festooning the exterior of the Ark's hull fires upon the Starfleet explorer, spearing the ship through and through by means of a superluminal rail gun. Diving in close to the hull of the Ark, and thus below the depression and elevation of the Arks weapons arcs, the Traveller becomes trapped between running out of power and being attacked by the Ark.

The crew then boards the Ark, seeking to disable or counter the strange energy dampening field the Ark is generating. Within they find an empty cityscape curled around on itself, the arks spindle-like form once spun up to simulate gravity. Dull brass buildings, blocky and utilitarian are seen, littered here and there with outcroppings of jagged black crystals. The crew breaks up into two teams: Team A will investigate the Ark, to learn more about who built it, whereas Team B will investigate the engineering spaces and seek a means to effect their escape.

It is during these investigations that the truth is found. Team A find a being called Clee-San, the governing intelligence of the Ark. Not quite an AI, having clear memories of a past where she was a corporeal being, she disembodied consciousness was put in command of the ship. It was part of a flotilla of vessels escaping the ravages of a techno plague that had consumed her home galaxy over the span of two millennia. Her entire species, the Morning Star Imperium, had waged a war of attrition against the plague as it moved from star to star, enclosing each in a sphere of black matter mined from the torn apart ruins of the worlds they destroyed.

In a final act of defiance, the Morningstar Imperium drew the plague to their home star and detonated their star, using the shock wave to propel their arks out of their galaxy and burn away the swarm that had caused them such pain. But the plague follows the Arks, and one by one on the millennia spanning exodus across the gulf between galaxies the Arks began to be hunted by elements of the plague. Being the last Ark, and nearing its destination, Clee-san sent her charges ahead in sublight capable transports, intending to keep the plague here with her in the darkness between galaxies.

And that she did, for nearly15'000 years....until the USS Traveller arrived, and awoke a Clock Maker spore.

Team B, whilst investigating the engineering spaces littered with strange black crystals, discovered the engine room of the Ark: a pair of co-orbiting black holes powering one of a duet of engines. In an attempt to understand the mechanics, one of the exploration team tried to access the controls. The panel transformed from a hidden Clock Maker spore, consuming him in an instant to form a Clock Maker Soldier form, a black crystalline humanoid that began to attack. Easily broken by phaser fire, other spores began to awaken, and soon Team B was fighting a rearguard action to escape.

Reuniting aboard the Runabout USS Zheng-he, the two away teams escape as Clock Maker spores awaken, spiriting Clee-san's hard matter core with them. In doing so they set off a timed self destruct, allowing the two black holes to fall towards one another. The resulting explosion consumes the Clock Makers, the Ark, and nearly the Traveller which escapes as the energy dampening field collapses.

Captain Remas bargains with Clee-san to work with them in Messier 4, knowing that her people or their descendants might dwell there in peace. She agrees.