7Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or its characters. They are the sole property of Paramount and CBS. Only the story line and the characters I've created are mine. This is a fan-based work of fiction only. No copyright infringement intended.
Essential Canon Facts
Equinox is launched 48003.7 early sept 2370 (standard crew complement is approx. 80 crew members)
Voyager is launched 48038.5 late sept 2370.
Caretaker Episode set in Early March, 2371.
Author's Note: Originally started as a backstory for another story I am writing, but took on a life of it's own. :-)
Logs of Captain Ransom of the Starship Equinox
Captain's Log. Stardate 48001.3 (Day 1)
Well, we are finally ready to leave space dock on a 6 month tour out to the Bajoran sector and back. I have a crew complement of 87. Fifteen of them are seasoned crew members ranked Junior Lieutenant to Commander. Two of them have come highly recommended: Lieutenant (junior grade) Burke, my new Bridge Science Officer, and Lieutenant Sheldon my new Bridge Ops. Officer. Four of them are Ensigns on their second tour looking for quick advancement opportunities on a new ship. The rest of them are new recruits from the Academy and enlisted crewmen. I'm kind of curious as to why they've all been given to me considering it's my first time out as Captain also. Guess that's really why they've decided to give this ship a milk run. A six month tour examining interesting but familiar and existing alpha quadrant stellar phenomenon while our new crew get their feet wet in outer space and their new Captain gets his feet wet in the big chair. Officially it has been designed with an eye to giving my newbies some first-hand experience and time to adjust to real life in space and learn how to work together while touring the local sights. Kind of like a glorified cruise ship experience. Most Starfleet crews come from planet-bound backgrounds. I did, myself. And deciding six weeks into a five year mission that you hate space and life on a spaceship and that you just want to go home is not a great start to the rest of your working life. Despite our being a short range vessel, most of our graduates here on the Equinox are ones that have expressed an interest in long term missions. It will be my job to make sure that they are ready, willing and prepared for the realities of that lifestyle. I guess SF Headquarters wants them to really consider their choice. Our ship doesn't have any of the luxuries that a normal long range vessel has. The sad reality is that 45% of these newbies will either quit or transfer to a planet based survey team at the end of this tour.
We also have an extra 15 Starfleet graduates that will be transferring to the Kelvin in approximately two weeks. We will rendezvous with the Kelvin enroute on the edge of the badlands after a quick stop at Starbase 92 to collect my new First Officer. Ri'sharnik comes highly recommended, from several friends who have all served with him. It's good to hear the recommendation from people I trust and not just the hierarchy white washing a placement I don't have a choice about. I am fortunate to be getting such a great officer for my first time in the captain's chair.
Captain's Log Stardate 48012.1 (day 11)
Three days ago, the Equinox was caught up in a polarized magnetic displacement wave and transported over 70,000 light years away by an alien life form, known by the locals as "the caretaker". This being almost immediately kidnapped our entire crew and experimented on them, before returning us to our ship. Interestingly, everyone was returned alive and physically well, although suffering from extreme trauma – even the previously dead ones. I should be thankful; our initial body count before "the caretaker" started on his experiments was 37 dead, 28 seriously injured, the rest of us all suffering minor injuries and blood loss. On the other hand, our ship remained a mess. Of course, that was before the local thugs, who call themselves "the Kazon" attacked. We were able to escape although we have totally lost shields and weapons. Maximum speed is currently warp one. We have set a limping course for home as all of the nearby planets are either severely lacking in water or food resources and will not sustain us, or are being guarded by Kazon.
Captain's Log (Day 12)
Attacked by another Kazon sect eager to acquire our technology through violence. We escaped with minor damage to the hull. And we've been able to get back to Warp 3. Unfortunately 10 crew members are injured, 4 seriously. I'm happy to report that Dr Leitner anticipates no serious issues patching them all up.
Captain's Log (Day 13)
We were forced to drop out of Warp after a primary relay failed. Unfortunately we dropped out of warp straight into the middle of a war zone. We were able to fix the relay within 20 minutes and went straight back to warp, but still sustained minor damage to our hull and our systems. We're a short range science vessel and not designed to take this amounts of punishment. 4 more crew down with serious injuries.
Captain's Log. (Day 32)
We have been turned back from our course to the Alpha Quadrant. Having escaped the Kazon yet again, we ran afoul of a people called the Krowtonian Guard. They demanded we leave their territory immediately or be destroyed. We tried diplomacy and attempted to continue through while negotiating for an exemption to their standard policy. Our attempts at diplomacy failed and we were outgunned and outmanned. Their initial offensive, two torpedoes, took out our newly fixed shields and weapons - again, part of engineering and also our sickbay. We are back down to warp 1. Without shields or weapons, I had no choice but to yield to their demands. It is with regret that I must now state for the record that, on Stardate 48038.45, Dr Evan Leitner, Nurses Kh'ertin and Troyse Teprin, Chief Engineer Freydth Ethgin, Engineers Thron Reet, Zin Tareil, Carl Even, Technicians Lois Stevens, Rick Enileid and Kristari Lin and Ops Tech Chan Learty all lost their lives in an unprovoked attack by a Delta Quadrant hostile. They all served with honor.
Fortunately, we have been able to save the EMH program, so we have been able to successfully treat all the other causalities of our run in with the Krowtonian Guard.
Captain's Log (Day 35)
Today, we lost Roger Timms and Gr'acetaeila Ewitlwyn. They broke a stupid, idiotic rule that we knew nothing about and were summarily executed. The entire crew were forced at gunpoint to watch. Damned Prime Directive. Of course, we'd already made the mistake of sharing Intel. about our prime directive before going on shore leave. Those bastards were more than happy to shove it in our face when we objected to the execution orders. Insisting, that if we tried again to interrupt their due process of Justice, we would all be executed as accessories too. Timms and Ewitlwyn bravely upheld Starfleet's finest traditions when they allowed themselves to be sacrificed in order for the rest of us to go free.
Captain's Logs(Day 37)
Chased out of another star system. Sorry no strangers allowed. Seems to be the theme around here. Go away unless you have something we need. You do? Great, we'll take it and to hell with you. Do you want to go in battle, or by execution? Damn, I'm being negative today. I'd kill for beer right now. Too bad replicators are offline again.
Captain's Log. Stardate Let's say stardate 48102.3 (Day 39)
At least, it was this morning. Right now, I don't know when, or even where we are in the space-time continuum. For the second time in two months, the Equinox has been flung through the galaxy, this time by a chrono-spatial eddy that opened up on top of us. We have lost another 6 crew from engineering, as well as our senior stellar cartographer. The engines are a mess, and I only have 7 crew members left who are skilled in Engineering. Only two of them have served on Starfleet vessels before and they are both junior lower deck crewmembers. I am giving a field promotion of Lieutenant to John Bowler. Hopefully, he will do a good job as our new Chief Engineer. With Stellar Cartography temporarily down, we are making our best effort to extrapolate the direction of the Alpha Quadrant and continue our way home. You know, I've said this before. BUT! This was supposed to be a science vessel's version of a milk run. A six month tour examining interesting but familiar stellar phenomenon with an eye to giving the newbies in the crew some first-hand experience and time to adjust to real life in space and learn how to work together.
Ri'sharnik is right though. They might be unseasoned, but the crew are doing an exceptional job of maintaining their professionalism and the Starfleet ethos in a difficult situation that I think would try even the most seasoned officer, even that of the Enterprise crew. Ri'sharnik is doing an amazing job in his capacity as First Officer. He continues to be my voice of reason and encouragement. Not to mention, that of the rest of the crew. I would like to take the time to recommend that Commander Ri'sharnik be considered for a captaincy if we ever get home. He is an exceptional officer. The way he rallies the crew to maintain their duties and their professionalism in the midst of abject loss and difficulty is truly inspiring.
Captain's Log (Day 46)
Today, I lost my first officer. Ri'sharnik was a good man, and an even better First Officer. I can not overstate how devastating his loss is to both myself and this ship. Out of necessity, I have promoted Maxwell Burke to the position of first officer. I'm not sure if this was a good idea or not. A little bird told me before we left Starbase 92 for our last mission that my senior science officer is actually a section 31 plant. I know everyone else thinks they don't exist, but I know better. They're real alright and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that he is one. He's a very hard man. Before we arrived in this hellhole of a quadrant I had intended to find a reason to lose him from my crew asap. But things are different here. I don't exactly have a lot of choices. I've lost six of my seasoned officers already. I only started with 16. And I need all 9 of my other seasoned crewmembers in their places. In any case, maybe I need someone with that kind of hardness for my first officer if this ship is to have any real hope of making it home, alive that is. Time will tell.
Captain's Log, estimated Stardate ….(Day 50)
A friendly planet. Thank God. No energy resources, but edible food. And water! And shore leave for the crew. What is wrong with this quadrant? Hardly any of the systems have much in the way of water. Or food. Or raw materials for Dilithium, it seems. I've never seen so many dry and arid systems grouped together and I've been in Starfleet for 40 years. It just doesn't seem natural.
Captain's Log Supplemental.
Who would have thought that having green eyes would be a reason to be arrested? Apparently, around here, it's the sign of being possessed by demons. The locals were planning to burn her on a funeral pyre in order to purify her soul of the evil. Naturally Nichols resisted arrest and the rest of the crew on shore leave rotation assisted. 9 crew members including Nichols were injured. We were forced to leave with only a quarter of the resources we had traded for. Enough for maybe another three weeks.
Captain's Log. (Day 86)
After just 12 weeks in this hellhole otherwise known as the Delta Quadrant I am already at the end of my tether. Although, we haven't lost any more crew, apart from Rh'Sharnick, since our fast ride through the spatial eddy, it was another close call today, and the ship is on its last legs. Fortunately, we only had a small complement of crew on the latest disaster planet when they were attacked. Damned aliens never even showed up on our sensors. Happily, we were able to beam our people up before anyone died, and go to Warp to escape. Unfortunately, we had no choice about the direction we could take. Nor did we leave totally unscathed. We have used up almost all of our Dilithium in the escape. We are, once again, almost totally out of resources. We have reduced the oxygen levels to the lowest possible settings in order to conserve energy, the replicators have been designated emergency use only; and the crew will, until further notice, be allowed a single 2 minute sonic shower every 3-4 days. Needless to say, with the 100% bad experiences regarding shore leave experienced so far, no-one is eager for shore leave any time soon, even if we found somewhere suitable, no matter how stir crazy they feel. We have field rations for maybe two months left. Right now, I am beginning to fear for my life, as well as those of most of my senior officers. Most of the new kids are desperate to go home. And I mean, desperate!
My first officer has implemented some borderline decisions when he's been in the big chair; the kind we are told aren't the Starfleet Way. Not that I've heard about these directly. By now, I guess it goes without saying that they weren't included in any of his reports. Not sure what action I can take at this point. No-ones actually talking to me about it. It's all just unsubstantiated rumors. And only when they don't realize I'm in listening range. I can't be there all the time. I'm only human. I need to sleep sometimes.
The prevailing mood amongst the crew seems to have radically changed recently ... well we all really just want to go home. It doesn't look hopeful.
Unfortunately, the majority of my new Starfleet crew now seem to care more about being a live crew than they do about being a Starfleet crew. As far as I can tell, only my other senior officers and a handful of the lower decks still feel that acting according to Starfleet Regulations and Ideals matters out here, if it means risking our lives to do so. I am very concerned about the possibility of a mutiny. Not that that would change anything except kill us all faster. Our ship just isn't meant to traverse these distances, or these conditions. Damn, I miss having Ri'sharnik as my First Officer. Who'd have thought that a First Officer could be so instrumental to the feel and the character of a crew's complement? No wonder Starfleet Command always asserts such a command presence in a Captain's first choice of First Officer.
Log supplemental.
Finally, a real stroke of good luck. We have come across some nice aliens for a change. We have food and medicine again and another two weeks of energy reserves for our warp core. The aliens even summoned their "Gods" to grant us a blessing for our journey. It looks to be an inter-dimensional portal. We have managed to acquire one of the summoning devices. Maybe there is a way to use the technology to get us home.
Captain's Log (Day 100)
After we received the "blessing" from the inter-dimensional portal aliens we had a lovely string of good luck. Unfortunately, it has ran out after just one lousy month and the damned Delta quadrant just struck again. We ran into more hostiles and another battle. No deaths, injuries or major damage, though. All in all, it could have been worse.
Captain's Log. (Day 102)
We have ended up in some kind of damned void after being run out of town again. We are going to attempt to cut across on a parallel course to the border, and hopefully come out again outside of Ehregian Space, before continuing on our way back to the Alpha Quadrant.
Captain's Log. (Day 198)
We have been attempting to leave the void for the last three months. Each attempt has resulted in running afoul of yet another species and being chased back in here. We're pretty desperate. We have decided to see if we will have more luck going through the void instead.
Captain's Log. (Day 230)
A power coupling in stores failed today sparking a fire. It was contained quickly, but we have suffered huge losses in our food and equipment stores as well as our weapons locker.
Captain's Log (Day 243)
Our food stores including ration bars have just about run out, and we have four days' worth of Dilithium left. Someone suggested that we needed more good luck. So, having no other options, we decided to "summon a blessing" from the inter-dimensional lifeform. However, when we summoned it, it accidentally died. They must be telepathically linked as a companion alien came screaming through the portal. It was very angry. Crewman Sepparta is dead; his body was totally desiccated and shriveled upon contact with the second alien when it attacked. We were lucky enough to be able to subdue the second alien and close the portal.
Captain's Log (Day 246)
We are dead in space, with still nothing on the sensors within shuttle or emergency pod range and no end to this void in sight. The EMH has come up with an idea of how to convert the bodies of the dead nucleogenic lifeforms to an energy form compatible with our engines. I am uncomfortable with this idea. These are living entities that we are talking about. Well, dead- former living entities. That we killed. Yeah, the first one was killed by accident and the second one, well let's call it self-defense considering what happened to Sepparta. But, if we take this step and use their bodies to fuel our engines, what does that make us? Are we crossing the line if we do this? But, there's no choice! Short of a miracle, there's no other hope left for us.
We do have a choice. A hope. If we do this.
Max thinks we should do it. Yeah I made Max my first officer because the Delta Quadrant is full of no win situations leaving us with only hard choices to make. The idea might have been the EMH's; the justification, my first officers'; but the decision is mine. I have a responsibility to this crew. To keep them alive, to get them home to their families. But at what cost? Do we sell our morals, our souls, everything that we represent just to get home? If I take this step, where do I draw the line next time? ….[pause log]
[resume log] … Hell, Max my first officer is right; they're already dead and if we don't do something, we'll be in the same boat within the month. I will spend my last days sitting and watching my entire crew starve to death in a starless void. In the dark. We're going to have to kill all the lights on the ship tonight, just to hang on for another few days. If I stick to my "Star fleet principles" we are all as good as dead. Wonderful. And who will ever know about our valiant sacrifice for our principles, anyway, here in this endless void. I don't think I can make the honorable choice this time. I just can't sit here and watch my crew die while there is a chance to save them. Here in this hellish, endless void there is no one to help us. No one to know about our lives, our choices and our regrets, both the good and the bad. No one will ever know. No one. We are alone. There is no other hope.
Supplemental
In the absence of any other viable alternatives, I have reluctantly given my consent to the nucleogenic fuel project.
Captain's Log (Day 270)
Our attempt to use the nucleogenic energy seems to be successful. Amazingly, the energy has served to supply us with unlimited access to the food and medical replicators and sonic showers for the last two weeks while we replicated all the replacement equipment needed to fix the ship. We have finally managed to completely restore our structural integrity and are now ready to start fixing everything else. We'll be working on engines, weapons and shields first.
Captain's Log (Day 284)
Our energy supply is still going and has allowed us to not only exceed normal maximum warp all the way up to warp factor 9.9, but sustain it uninterrupted. Not only that, but we seem to have also flowed through some kind of spatial rift which was generated when we used the nucleogenic energy in our warp core. According to our internal sensors at Ops we have travelled over 2,000 lightyears in the last 2 weeks And, we have not had to stop to search for supplies or energy resources either since our nucleogenic energy has also continue to generously supply our needs in these areas also.
Captain's Log. (Day 287)
We are ready to turn our attention to making stellar cartography fully operational again. It should be up and running in two or three days.
With our nucleonic energy almost used up, we have opted to slow down and search for dilythium and food sources while we still have a good supply of replicator reserves. We want to stock up on spare parts and the stuff we can't acquire naturally.
Captain's Log (Day 290)
Hell, this quadrant hates us. 5 more dead and no supplies to show for it thanks to yet another hostile delta quadrant alien. To make matters worse, stellar cartography has just extrapolated our position, and it's not even close to what our ops station on the bridge has been saying. We've decided to run a complete diagnostic on both stellar cartography and Ops. To work out the problem. Just to make sure.
Captain's Log. (Day 292)
Thanks to a minor misalignment in one of the relays in the Ops. Station, and an incompetent Ops officer, we got it completely wrong while Stellar Cartography was down and we chose our heading. Damn! I thought Sheldon was a quality officer, but the newbie I assigned to his post found the fault after just five hours on the job. It's probably a good thing for Sheldon that the EMH couldn't save him after his accident on the Cr'itcc Homeworld yesterday after all. The crew would have lynched him anyway. We are now 79,000 lightyears away from home instead of just 70, 000. We also seem to have traveled five years into the future when we were hit by that spatial eddy. No one's waiting for us back home in the Alpha Quadrant anymore. Just as well, I guess since we traveled another 9,000 lightyears in the wrong direction these last two weeks. We're never getting home the normal way now. It looks like we're going to have to colonize somewhere. I'm not taking the alternative suggested by our EMH and Max.
Captain's Log (Day 316)
No luck finding a place to settle down and plant roots on. Another two crewman, both from engineering again, lost their lives while mining for dilythium. Do I need to mention that it was due to yet another hostile alien force?
Captain's Log (Day 346)
7 more lives lost in a month just because we stopped to find more standard supplies.
Captain's Log (Day 359)
Have lost another three crew to yet another weird and nonsensical local law while trying to a) acquire more standard resources. B) Look for some nice safe M class planet to settle down on. At this rate, we'll all be dead within the year, unless of course we all starve first.
Captain's Log (Day 360)
We permanently lost our EMH today when the hostiles fired at us. They appear to be the same as the ones from the planet we were on yesterday. Their weird energy weapons fried half of our systems. At our Senior Staff Meeting we have agreed to take desperate measures. A number of lower deck crewmembers, including some in engineering, were initially reluctant to take this desperate stance, despite our recent losses. However, our enterprising first officer has successfully persuaded them to our way of thinking. Although I am saddened by the extremely distasteful stance we had to take with the 7 dissenting voices amongst the crew, I feel it was necessary; even if I, myself, have some personal qualms myself about taking this step. I just don't see any other way. We have been in the Delta Quadrant for just less than a year. During this time, I have lost 41 crew members, that's more than half of a standard crew complement for this type of ship. Of course, all of these deaths occurred outside of the three months we spent in the void and while using the 2 yields of nucleogenic energy we already had. And all our attempts, to date, to find somewhere hospitable to live have failed.
So, on the one hand, we sustained 41 deaths over a mere two and a half month period in normal space, limping a total of 100 lightyears using standard travel mode with the dubious assistance during that time of a chrono-spatial eddy sending us an additional 900 lightyears and 5 physical years. This is compared to travelling 9000 lightyears in 2 weeks with no loss of crew member lives thanks to the accidental loss of two alien lives which netted us the nucleogenic energy. As long as the spatial rift opens when we use the new nucleogenic fuel in the warp core again, it is worth our while to revert back to the use of it. We have calculated that it will take just 18 yields of nucleogenic energy to get us home within 18 weeks. We can all be home in just over four months. The math speaks for itself. The Senior Staff are all finally agreed. Our first duty is to our crew. We are going home. And in this hellhole, it's them or us. I owe it to the remaining 60 crew members I have left.