S02Ep11 Broken City

"…, the child…, forgive me…,”
 * - Kurr to Gabriel “Matrix” Logan, S02Ep11 Broken City

S02Ep11 Broken City is eleventh episode in Star Trek Eternity’s Season 2. It was created on January 31, 2014 and is the longest running in character topic in the forum. It sees the Intrepid Class Hope investigating a Dyson Sphere wherein the crew get involved with the troubles occurring with the Voth. FSF Who stars as Jetan Remsen and it serves to conclude that character’s story.

Prologue
The episode opens to a flashback of one of the first assaults by the Borg during the opening moments of the Machine Wars in the Delta Quadrant. Hagar a Voth Minister of Defense sits posed along with those tasked with overseeing the defense of their home, a Dyson Sphere, from Sion “Xatrix” Logan and the rest of the Collective. The Voth assault isn’t fairing well and the numbers of deaths and destruction becomes overwhelmingly devastating. At another loss of a Voth City Ship, the Norpin, Hagar orders that the Sphere’s access ports be closed, sealing himself and those still inside while damning the thousands or millions that were left to die.

Distress Signal
"Captain's Log, Stardate 64110.96. In the interest of keeping a log in place should our efforts fail, I’m continuing to make these things despite my earlier convictions.’’”

The Hope and crew, having departed the planet HaDara and safely freed the Hirogen people from the Zahara Reality, rests comfortably docked with the Hirogen carrier Rim, leader of the patchwork Hirogen fleet. Engineering matters rise to the forefront with the removal of damaged strut and footpad for recasting. Once the job is done, Lt. Marisol Hocevar meets with Lt. Owen Scott and Halversson to discuss security’s needs. In the Void, Gabriel “Matrix” Logan practices sword proficiency as he ponders the cost of his aspirations, versus the destruction in his brother’s wake. Lt. Scott considers his station in life versus those of his parents, with counsel by the unseen King Calmest, he successfully marshals his department. Lt. Harold Ambrose finds irritation with Lt. Hocevar, and the engineers in general as he manages Ops. Commander Talla Vreenak maintains his position on the bridge as his mind puts itself towards the detailed review ahead. Captain Rick Barlow holds the command chair, experiencing tiredness, yet driven by an unrelenting need to reclaim Eternity, one way or another. In his exhaustion, often he finds conversation with Jim Maxwell, though he knows them to be delusions, his tired mind trying to find outlets other than practical to deal with irrationality and the impossibility of returning his crew home.

The Hirogen complement seed their way into Hope’s roster, most of whom are still coming to terms with their new realities while some do not fair well and continue to be under care by the ship’s Counselor Janelle James. Some Hirogens found floating in an isolation compartment anger Doctor Brett Reese who then confronts Commander Colin Byrne of the issue she is having with them in his quarters and further evolves the talk on his need for isolation from the rest of the crew. This, abandonment and abrupt shift of those saved from the Zahara reality comes to the forefront of the Senior Officers when Lt. Halvorsson becomes shockingly confrontational with Lt. Hocevar during a meeting between Security and the Engineer Chief. Halversson is then relieved of duty and taken into custody while Lt. Scott takes on the full department of both Security and Tactical Operations, to his alter ego’s applauds. The roster is shuffled to accommodate the loss and Marisol Hocevar finally takes on the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

With the dust settling and repairs and upgrades soon rounding to finality, the crew eventually finds time for other avenues to take their minds off the approaching finality of their eventual encounter with the Borg and it’s King. Byrne speaks with Logan; though, in conversation, neither show each other hands when it comes to their aims and reason for returning to Hope. Scott and Ensign Anam Farqooi spar in the Void and Lieutenant Commander Amelia Moore speaks of her pregnancy and feelings of identifying who the father is to Lt. Commander Hocevar.

As the ship draws nearer to the access point for insertion into the Underspace the Hope’s communications pick up a transmission of a distress signal. Weary of traps, Barlow seeks to identify it’s source which, after much work its concluded it comes from a Dyson Sphere within the Concord System. The Captain calls all senior staff to the Bridge, expressing his desire to intercept the sphere, it’s resources too tempting to leave alone even though their is risk of entrapment.

Super Planet
Discussions are undertaken concerning the approach to the Dyson sphere, versus the ship’s capacity and the risk. LtCdr. Moore’s arrival on the bridge, considering her former efforts of refraining from seeing the crew or being in the presences of Cdr. Byrne. Apparent tensions follow further as Amelia Moore’s hesitation in seeking additional information about the Concord System gives leeway for Cdr. Byrne to assert his own presence, a move which prompts speculation, and ire from Captain and prompts Vreenak to lead Byrne from the Bridge. In conference, Byrne seizes the opportunity to draw the XO into his plan of sparing the crew of Hope from Barlow’s unrealistic idea of taking the Borg head on. Vreenak surprises him, unexpectedly, agreeing to a measure that allowed Byrne to continue his endeavor all the while Hope disembarks from it’s former comfortable dock with the carrier Rim, jumping to warp with a wing of escorts and leaving LtCdr’s Moore and Hocevar to replenish the ship’s dilithium by less than satisfactory means.

At the arrival, Hope and it’s fleet drop out of warp to find a lifeless system, it’s planets long since decayed due to the loss of a sun. Where the sun should be rests a massive planet, it’s surface covered in a wide range of terrain and biomes. It’s unexpected to see as Dyson sphere’s notably do not cater an atmosphere or artificial means of illumination. It becomes difficult to scan through the many many layers of the super planet and beyond a cryptic hail transmission, Captain Barlow orders Commander Vreenak to form his away team. As Hope moves into orbit above the super planet, Lt. Ambrose finds the computer a pale match for the voluminous information presented leading to a collaborative effort between Operations and Science.

Progenitor Virus
Hope monitors as the away team comprised of Vreenak, Logan, Scott, Reese, and Hocevar and 6 other security officers beam to the surface. Shortly after their arrival, they discover an injured Voth. While the bridge crew puzzle over the sphere from above, the team soon overcomes the Voth's skittish nature through medical treatment. He tells them of a weapon, utilized by the Voth to defend their sphere from the attacking Borg. Aboard Hope, concerns rise as sensors detect the away team being ringed by several very large creatures.

Events begin to unfold rapidly as Vreenak orders Lt. Scott and Cdr. Logan to scout for signs of the advancing creatures. As they disappear into the jungle, the first roars can be heard. The injured Voth is beamed aboard by the behest of Dr. Reese, their arrival locating them into Sickbay. Once the away team confirms not one, but five massive predators, the order is given to beam them out. In an instant, all transporter and scanner locks fall in conjunction with a piercing blue beam that gravitates towards atmospheric altitudes before spreading like a canopy, doming over a portion of the surface. Vreenak orders the team to take cover beneath the dome while the gigantic creatures snap at their heels. As the dome closes, connecting with the ground, all members of the away team are accounted save for Cdr. Logan who takes to hiding.

Cdr. Vreenak leads the away team further in with the hope of finding the source of the dome, before they are suddenly met with a Voth scouting party. Kurr, their leader, welcomes the team before regaling them with the tale of his own arrival, and the fearsome weapon used to protect the sphere from the attacking Borg. Aboard Hope frustration and worry rule the day as attempts are made to raise the team, lock them with sensors, or engage the transporter. Capt. Barlow and Counselor James question the Voth in Sickbay who identifies himself as Gwren and tells of the Progenitor Virus, the biological mutagen used in defense against the Borg and the possibilities of biological contamination. Learning of this Barlow heads to the bridge, informing Cdr. Byrne before returning to Sickbay. Unable to believe that Barlow would have just endangered the lives over everyone by his little trip, Cdr. Byrne enacts a ship-wide quarantine, locking in protocols and sealing most of the ship's primary facilities.

On the surface, the away team learns of the pathogen, its specifics to eradicate Borg biomechanical and bioelectrical functions and its effect of de-evolving those that do not possess any augments as well as their efforts in trying to find a cure. Tests are done on each member presenting that all are infected save for LtCdr. Hocevar. To stifle the effects and lessen the gestation period of the virus, the away team are injected with Legionella, a bacterium that is harmless to Voth physiology but causes a degree of sickness in human physiology. Meanwhile Kurr tests Hocevar's blood, revealing evidence of Generation 7 nanopropes. Kurr's fascination is interrupted by Marisol's request to vist the communications center, a request he honors without hesitation.

Back aboard Hope, efforst are made to determine the rate the virus will spread throughout the ship while additional information gleamed by Gwren proposes that there might be a possibility of opening communications with the Voth Enclave on the ground via a low frequency channel. For a brief second, using the proposed method, communications are reestablished between the away team on the Dyson sphere and Hope. Crucial information begins to flow.., the nature of the virus, it's Legionella delaying tactic..., before the channel is cut. Hocevar goest to report the situation to Vreenak as well as volunteering to search for the missing Cdr. Logan while Hope, still baffled by the sudden loss of signal is once again surprised as the ship is systematically taken over. Weapons fire, sabotaged systems going offline. As the crewmen encounter Kazon attackers ship-wide, Colin Byrne finds himself facing none other than Jetan Remsen.

The Taking of Hope
As Byrne and Remsen square off in a tense one upsmanship, the away team reach an unanimous decision that all will venture outside the dome to locate Cdr. Logan. After issuing a waring about the resuming speed of their succumbing to the Progenitor virus, Kurr extracts the Legionella stopgap from each before volunteering to accompany them into the jungle at nearly the immediate disapproval from the Enclave's second in command. Vreenak gives the order and all collected, geared up, and depart into the jungle.

Aboard Hope, the take over continues as Sickbay is taken over by Kazon invaders. Capt. Barlow and Dr. Reese have no small amount of trouble in subduing an enraged Kazon attacker before they are eventually waylaid and caught. On the bridge, the tense exchange between Remsen and Byrne has likewise become physical, with Byrne's Borg reinforced strength delivering a strangulation death grip to the Kazone crime lord. Strangely, this has no effect. Remsen laughs and threatens just as if his airways and blood flow were clear. This leads to Colin's suspicion that Remsen was holographically projecting himself. At the ruse made in the light, Remsen disappears, leaving a tribble carrying a highly potent form of the virus. Colin picks up the tribble Janeway as LtCdr. Moore, sequestered in the Ready Room, begins to experience contractions of her impending childbirth, her body is flung to the floor as a tractor beam engages on Hope, pulling the ship through the Dyson sphere atmosphere. The moment death seems inevitable, the sphere opens, pulling the hapless starship inside. The death plunge of Hope is noted with horror by the away team who make effort to hurry toward what they assume must be a crash site.

Suddenly, violent, typhoon force winds spring up, turning the jungle into a flying hell of deadly projectiles. Some of the away team are instantly lost. Marisol's own struggles are relieved temporarily by the strap of the medkit on her shoulder, caught on a sturdy root. She clings to this for her salvation as Cdr. Vreenak draw close to her rescue, gripping hands just as Cdr. Logan finds the remnants of the away team, vying for his own hand hold among the storm of wind and debris.

Back aboard Hope, as the ship enters the Dyson sphere, the virus takes hold of Cdr. Byrne who exists the bridge and collects a vital case, and, with the tribble in tow, takes to an Hirogen Scout ship Janarr. He's able to leave Hope, reconsidering the avenues to accomplish his personal mission, before he launches the ship into warp, the Progenitor Virus attacking, his devolving body setting to war with the alien artifice inside him.

As the pressures of the outside meet equalization with the inside, the typhoon winds dissipate and an eerie silence casts a pall over the scene as members of the away team reunite. Cdr. Logan rejoins the group, reporting the death of the Voth scientist, Kurr. As LtCdr. Hocevar sets to work with the medkit, Logan and Cdr. Vreenak discuss the importance of a chip Kurr offered up before his death.

Hope, now inside the Dyson sphere, is pulled into a docking facility, clapped securely. Cutters burn into the hull, explosions sound and Jetan Remsen and his men take the ship fro the now rapidly de-evolving crew too disorganized to put up a resistance. Even as the Hope's captain fights more as a cornered animal than commanding human.

Away Team Returns
De-evolution strikes the crew of Hope in varying levels. Ensign Farooqi finds himself losing cognition and linguistically skills as he attempts to maintain order on the bridge. Dr. Reese has fallen far down the evolutionary ladder, moving and behaving to match her apelike physique, as her reasoning mind looks on in horror. Sealed in the ready room, LtCdr. Moore shows no symptoms, yet her health crisis, the impending birth of her child, will not be delayed. While Janelle James gives into her urges of her de-evolved DNA to find a cold submerse bath.

On the surface, Lt. Scott tallies the loss of away team members, feeling visribly irritated and openly mistrusting his companions, moving off into the brush. Vreenak ponders the immunity factors of both LtCdr. Hocevar and Cdr. Logan. Vreenak is treated for a dislocated arm while the infection burns him into a delirium. The virus begins to take hold of the Romulan even as his question of immunity is answered by Logan's insight into the capabilities of Generation 7 nanomachines, exposing concepts that give the ever growing impaired Vreenak and the unaffected Marisol Hocevar more question.

Meanwhile, onboard Hope, Gwren shows his true colors as a Voth in league with Remsen's aims, appearing on the Bridge and begins interrogating Lt. Ambrose who also burns with fever. The Voth also orders the Ready Room doors to be cut open and to take Moore to the lab at once. Several teams of Kazon are dispersed to hunt down and capture Hope's human crew, the orders regarding Hirogen occupants to be killed on sight.

Unknowing by the Kazon forces, Ens. Nazir gets a distress call out to the Hirogen carrier Rim before she's eventually overtaken by the invaders as they find her in the auxiliary bridge. This transmission is able to reach the patrolling fleet that had occupied Hope into the system, relaying that message of distress to the Rim whose skipper turns the beast around after signaling another communication to reach the Syndicate rendezvous ships. Nazir is tasked with helping the birth of Moore's child while Ambrose is injected with a truth cocktail that takes an adverse affect on him. Before the Operations Officer can devolve, his lunges at Gwren, taking the Voth down to the ground, but impaling himself on a dagger. With the Ops Officer dying, Gwren orders the Kazon to search for the ship's Chief Medical Officer.

On the ground, Vreenak's condition worsens and Cdr. Logan attempts to persuade him that he is in fact, dying, a prognosis challenged by the emotionally invested LtCdr. Hocevar as she attempts to set up a blood test in the field. Somewhere in the vicinity, Lt. Owen Scott has physically devolved, yet possessive of a keen, unfettered intellect to match his predatory stance. The Calmest alter ego nearly in charge of the beast's actions resolves into crafting a weapon and closing in stealthily upon Hocevar and Logan. As Marisol begins to hastily set a blood transfusion, Logan is struck square in the shoulder by Scott's spear, taking the man down momentarily before his augmented strength and speed leap him into combatting the devolved Chief of Security, overpowering the creature and, "assimilating," him, a process both spiritual and evolutionary for the revived Lieutenant but is damning to Commander Logan; the transfusion causing him to fall to early stages of implant rejection. Marisol's experience is similar as her own nanobodies are used on Vreenak, who somewhat recovers, but at the cost of nearly killing Hocevar.

Meanwhile, the Rim enters communication range, bombarding the area close to the now exposed opening of the Dyson Sphere with broadcasts. Eventually, the com badge inside Logan's long coat chirps with the sounds of voices causing the Commander, whom is slowly recovering, to respond. Eventually a plan is met to beam aboard Lieutenant Owen Scott and Commander Logan onto Hope, one at a time. Vreenak agrees and the plan is set into motion with Logan beaming in first and Scott in second. The two united are able to retake Hope's transporter room two and, with Scott's security access codes, are able to determine the situation onboard.

Through some transporter trickery, Scott then shuffles transporter signals, beaming Marisol Hocevar, Talla Vreenak, Amelia Moore, Anam Farqooi, Ensign Nazir, and Gwren into the Security Office. As the group join inside the small cramped space, Logan interrogates Gwren viciously, aquiring the antidote required to cure the Progenitor Virus.

More planning is involved as Logan takes the Dyson Sphere schematics from Gwren, localizing their efforts into transferring something into Hope's computer core, something that requires bio-neural circuitry, a technology that is not easily acquired and one that is equally difficult to fabricate. Scott proposes an assault before Marisol Hocevar succumbs to de-evolution, turning into a deranged Puma that is hesitantly left to escape down the corridor after viciously assaulting Gwren further, nearly tearing the Voth apart. The team collected venture to synthesis more antidote, retaking Sickbay while Lt. Scott and Ensign Farqooi investigate the proposed Command Center of Remsen's efforts using Kurr's data chip as a, "key," to enter.

The Child
"Having a son changes a man."
 * - Jai Culluh to Captain Barlow

Captain Rick Barlow stands in a field of grass and trees. A blue sky and warm sun falls upon his shoulders. For a moment, Barlow thinks himself as dead and where he stands is his heaven or hell until Jetan Remsen stands next to him. For a time Rick and the merchant king discuss Earth and how much Barlow misses it. Jetan speaks of his mother, and how she spoke fondly of the planet, all the while Rick is hearing Lieutenant Owen Scott speaking to another officer (Anam Farqooi) from somewhere outside of his current reality. There is a sound of metal sliding against metal before the reality around falls to darkness and cold.

Meanwhile, onboard Hope, Amelia Moore and Rick Barlow's child is about to be born. Ens. Nazir and Commander Logan help the birth of the little baby girl and, through the stem cells provided by the afterbirth, Logan is able to synthesis a more easily delivered antidote to the Progenitor Virus, the cure now given the ability to be delivered through the ship's air vents. Logan presents this and continues work with the materials on hand to synthesis enough to cure the ship of their de-evolved state.

Owen Scott's rifle's flashlight pierces the veil of darkness as both he and Anam Farqooi find the Captain within the Command Center. This Center is full of moving machines aged and worn, as if they had been running constantly for years upon years. Barlow ventures into the facility further finding a chamber within that houses an array of medical instrumentations and life support equipment. As he gets closer to the transparent dust covered casket that sits predominate as the connection point for all this equipment a holographic projection is activated via proximity detection. The Hologram pronounces itself to be Jai Culluh, former First Maje of the Kazon Nistrim. He speaks of his son, an illness, and the death of his wife Seska of whom his child was afflicted with the same cancer. It is later revealed that Jetan Remsen is his son, a child that he tried to keep alive making sacrifices and paying whatever was capable of him to create the means to live still with his son through the Voth Kurr. With the keycard now revealed to be a shutdown initiation to the life support systems keeping Jetan Remsen alive, Rick Barlow has a moment with the teenage Cardassian, looking upon the boy through the dust covered glass.

Epilogue
"We bury them here."
 * - Captain Rick Barlow to Gerrick the Red King

Gerrick the Red King arrives with his ship, the Crimson Knife into the Concord System at the behest of the carrier Rim and it's transmission of urgency on Hope's behalf. With the dampening fields, once set in place by Jetan now down, Gerrick's communication on all bands reaches Captain Barlow who calls for a change of plans in his notion on taking on the Borg Collective. Instead of the original rendezvous in the Underspace, Barlow tells Gerrick to call the fleet into the Concord System.

Meanwhile, not too far away, Colin Byrne's vessel is intercepted by the Borg Armada.