Captain's Log, Stardate 57698.5.
The Melbourne has been dispatched to the mining world of Fafnir. The colony has suffered a catastrophic failure of its terraforming equipment, and the system is far enough from the core of Federation space that we are the closest Starfleet vessel able to respond.
Chief Engineer Tarka briefs the senior staff on the challenge of replacing the failed terraforming equipment, noting that they will have to push the Melbourne's replication facilities to the maximum. She is coordinating with Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress on resource allocation, and adds that the manufacturing will likely exhaust the Melbourne's raw matter stock. Luckily, the 426 Draconis star system contains multiple gas giants, so if the Melbourne were to dip down into one of their atmospheres the ship's Bussard collectors can theoretically be used to draw in replacement matter. Tarka also notes that she will know more once she has a chance to examine the site in person. The briefing turns to the colony itself and Lt. Stuart chimes in pointing out that he is from there, leading to Capt. Mitchell letting him take the lead. Loto provides an overview of Drake's Folly, which is the name the locals use in lieu of its official designation of Fafnir, giving a high-level description of the culture and attitudes as well as his own advice and observations on how they should approach the mission.
The USS Melbourne enters the system and contacts the colony, which provides them an orbital slot near the asteroid station that serves as both the main starport and the terminus for the planetary space elevator. As the reach orbit sensors show that there is a Tellarite freighter, an Orion freighter, and a small Andorian transport also in position near the station. The station, which is called the Dragon's Wing, hails the Melbourne and tells them that Deputy Governor Elizabeth McIntyre is on the station and waiting to meet with them. Capt. Mitchell takes Cmdr. Partav, Lt. Cmdr. Tir, Lt. Stuart, and Chief Engineer Tarka and they beam over to the station, leaving Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress in command of the ship to continue preparations.
Deputy Governor McIntyre greets the away team in the station's transporter room, apologizing that the Governor himself could not be there but indicating this is because he is busy dealing with the crisis. She provides some more details on the scope of the problems, but assures Capt. Mitchell's concerns that while the situation is dire, the colony can make do through rationing and careful management of critical resources until the Melbourne can replace the destroyed equipment. Even water supplies are sufficient thanks to an emergency delivery from the nearby Andorian ice mining colony in their star's companion system. With this settled, Partav is ready to take the group down to the surface and the Captain can return to the Melbourne. Deputy Governor McIntyre indicates they will need to use the station's space elevator as transporting down is too risky due to the planet's atmosphere, and that if they intend to inspect the site of the destroyed terraforming equipment they will need to bring life support gear. As they move through the station they see a mix of humans, Tellarites, Tyrans, and the mechanical life-forms known as Exocomps.
The Melbourne beams over environment suits for the four remaining Starfleet officers and Deputy Governor McIntyre takes them down to the surface. The space elevator is old hat for Lt. Stuart, but the others are caught off guard by the rapid acceleration, followed by the eventual deceleration at the bottom. Large landing doors open and the elevator car passes through a forcefield into a pressurized bay underneath the landing area. From inside the car the passengers can see the flickering interaction of the forcefield and the planet's volatile atmosphere before the doors seal shut around the space elevator cable above them again. The group have barely disembarked before workers begin loading cargo containers aboard the elevator to be taken back up to orbit.
The Deputy Governor escorts Cmdr. Partav, Lt. Cmdr. Tir, Lt. Stuart, and Chief Tarka into the colony proper, which has been dug into the mountain. Lt. Stuart takes a moment to try and see how much has changed since he left home and spots a familiar face approaching the group, a former classmate now wearing what looks like a law enforcement badge. The man approaches Deputy Governor McIntyre and hands her a PADD, which she glances over before handing it back. The group can't help but notice the look that the man, Sgt. Thatcher, gives to Loto, indicative of a divide on how the Lieutenant's fellow colonists felt about his leaving for Starfleet. McIntyre apologizes again that Governor Fraser is busy, but indicates that they have arranged for someone to escort them to the site of the destroyed terraforming equipment.
Following the Deputy Governor, the four descend to a lower level of the colony, where they pass through a living quarters area built into a large cavern. Here dozens of cargo containers have been converted to small habitation units and stacked three or four high in makeshift housing blocs. In an open area between stacks a group of children are playing a game that involves teams trying to get a ball through a ring mounted on a pole. Loto explains that it is a bastardization of soccer and a Tellarite game that in polite company is called Ringball but that the children call "Hole-kicker". The children have paused their game, to the apparent chagrin of the Exocomp they have coerced into acting as the referee. Several children recognize Loto and marvel at his new holographic arm prosthesis. Passing through the habitation area the group traverse a set of doors into what looks like a garage area where the Deputy Governor hands them off to a middle-aged Tellarite before departing.
The Tellarite introduces himself as Khav Trellog, a Chief Technician, and he is joined by a younger blond woman named Amy Torres. The two are wearing older environment suits that look to have been patched and upgraded over the years with whatever parts could be obtained. They are preparing a tracked vehicle that looks like it has been modified from a decades-old surplus Starfleet shuttlecraft, and once the away team are suited up the pair invite them aboard. Just before the door is sealed an Exocomp quickly jets over and joins them, introducing itself as Hal. With all onboard, Khav and Amy take the tracked vehicle down a ramp to a set of large doors. Amy reaches to signal for the doors to open before Hal interrupts, insisting that he hit the button, but only after Amy asks him to "Open the pod bay doors, Hal"; which is apparently a regular demand from the Exocomp based on Amy's exasperated expression.
The vehicle exits the doors out onto the mountainside, where Khav and Amy carefully drive it across the highly uneven terrain, with visibility varying from a few meters to several dozen as the hazy atmosphere thickens and thins in the high altitude winds. At one point the clouds clear enough for the passengers to see a large elevated track high above them, which Khav explains connects to a neighboring peak where a new mine has been established. An underslung magnetic levitation train carries ore from the mine back to the main colony for initial processing and loading onto the space elevator. Eventually the vehicle crests a steep hill and in the valley below the Starfleet officers get their first look at the massive debris field that is all that remains of the colony's three massive terraforming engines. Despite their initial briefing, all four are taken aback by the scale of the destruction.
Cmdr. Partav's thoughts immediately turn to thoughts of sabotage, unable to conceive of any other explanation for the devastation. As soon as the team exits onto the surface Partav directs Lt. Cmdr. Tir to try and determine the cause of the explosion. While they do this, Chief Tarka concentrates on what is left, notably the connectors back to the colony, and working with Khav, Amy and Hal so she can ensure the replacement equipment being produced by the Melbourne will be able to hook back into the surviving systems. With the others occupied, Loto elects to explore the further edges of the debris field to see if he can find any clues. With not much left of the once massive terraforming towers, there is little that Mera can confirm, other than it appears that tower #3 was the first to explode, with the explosion and debris then triggering a chain reaction in the volatile materials in tower #2 which then exploded and caused the similar destruction of the remaining tower. She is unable to discover the root cause of the explosion, however, just that it is consistent with the volatile materials undergoing an explosive reaction, and began in one of the containment vessels inside the terraforming engine, but not what might have triggered that initial reaction in the third tower.
While Mera and Partav have been conducting their investigation, Loto's walk has taken him towards the outer perimeter of the debris field, out of sight of the others. While looking over the debris, Loto spots something out of place, a shape that is not like the other pieces scattered around the area. Approaching cautiously, Loto realizes it looks like a body. Knowing that there had been some technicians killed in the explosion, he initially assumes it is one of these and moves in. As he gets closer, Loto makes a shocking discovery - this body was not wearing an environmental suit, so could not be one of those killed in the explosion. So if the body was not a victim of the explosion then who was it and what is it doing here?
First Officer's Log, Supplemental. Commanders Tarka and Ahn'Kress are continuing their work on the terraforming site while Lt. Cmdr. Tir and I have joined Lt. Stuart at the location of the body he has discovered, alongside the colony authorities.
The colony's Federation Marshal, a man named Desmond Bell, arrives at the scene accompanied by a Tyran woman named Tabella, a doctor from the colony who the Marshal has conscripted to act as a medical examiner. The first priority is to secure the body before it can be further deteriorated by the planet's toxic atmosphere. With no way to use transporters, it will need to be moved manually, so to protect the body Lt. Stuart proposes trying to use his mobile emitter to project a containment field. This will require boosting the emitter's power output, so with Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress' help Loto modifies the emitter and is able to generate the containment field.
With the body protected, Lt. Cmdr. Tir proceeds to take detailed tricorder scans of the crime scene. While that is happening, Cmdr. Partav speaks with Marshal Bell, formally offering the Melbourne's help with the case. Bell knows he will need to clear things with the governor, but accepts the immediate help being rendered and asks Partav to contact the ship and have advanced medical equipment and personnel on standby pending Bell convincing the governor. Trellog and Torres, the technicians who had brought the away team to the terraforming site, bring their vehicle down to the crime scene, and with the help of the Exocomp Hal a makeshift gurney is created from spare panels of the vehicle and replicated parts. The body is carefully placed on the gurney and then taken on board the vehicle, all while Loto continues to project a protective containment field around it.
With everyone on board along with the body, Trellog drives the vehicle back to the colony. The trip gives Loto and Tabella, who are old acquaintances from Loto's days at the colony, time to make a preliminary assessment of the body. The skeletal structure indicates the victim was human, and the few bits of clothing that remain recognizable look like the standard uniform the miners wear when digging in the tunnels. A rough calculation based on the damage to the body's tissues and the acidic composition of the atmosphere where it was located indicates that it could have been there for a few days prior to the explosion that destroyed the terraforming equipment. Once the vehicle reaches the colony, most of the team work to move the body to the colony medical center while Marshal Bell goes to speak with the governor, accompanied by Partav.
At the Administration Center, Marshal Bell brushes past the administrative assistant and enters the office of Governor Eric Frasier, followed by Partav. The office is reasonably large, though fairly spartan, except for what appears to be the fossilized skull of a carnivorous dinosaur-like creature mounted on the wall behind the desk. The Governor himself is seated at his desk, in a video call with someone via the desk console and ends the conversation quickly before turning his attention to the arrivals. Bell starts the conversation, but once Partav has gotten a feeling for the relationship between the Marshal and the Governor he steps in, adopting a cordial but slightly adversarial attitude, effectively taking on a "bad cop" role to allow Bell to play "good cop" as they attempt to convince Governor Frasier to accept help from the USS Melbourne to solve the murder mystery. Frasier is a proud man, and fiercely protective of the colony's independence, but the two are able to wear him down with arguments of practicality and leaning into the Governor's own preference that things be solved quickly, something that Starfleet's help can make happen. With the Governor's reluctant okay, Partav contacts the Melbourne to have the previously requested equipment and personnel transferred over to the orbital station for transportation down to the colony.
The medical equipment is sent down, with medical specialist Lt. JG Nal Tradis to serve as the medical examiner, joined by a support medical specialist and a pair of technicians from Engineering to help install everything. While they await the arrival of everything from the Melbourne, the away team continue to work with Marshal Bell and Dr. Tabella in the colony medical center. They are soon joined by Dr. Benjamin Hart, the colony's chief physician. With his help the group is able to use skeletal, dental and genetic data from the body to identify it as Jeremy Hawkins, a miner who has been part of the group working the new gallicite mine on the neighboring mountain peak. Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress meets Lt. JG Tradis and the equipment at the space elevator station and helps them get everything to the medical center. Once there the technicians work to connect it to the colony's older systems. They get everything connected with the help of Tabella and an Exocomp nurse named Florence who is able to replicate the necessary adapters. With that accomplished, the technicians are sent to meet with Trellog so he can escort them to the terraforming site to assist Chief Engineer Tarka with the work on replacing the equipment there.
Lt. JG Tradis begins the full autopsy on the body, assisted by Lt. Stuart, Dr. Tabella and Florence under the watchful eye of Cmdr. Partav. They learn a great deal, answering some questions while raising others. Firstly, the examination confirms that the body had been exposed to the atmosphere for two days prior to the explosion, indicating the death was not a result of that. There is evidence of blunt force trauma, including broken bones, that is consistent with a fall from a large height, but those injuries all occurred post-mortem; indicating that Hawkins was killed somewhere else and likely dumped at the location where his body was found. Plasma burns on the rib cage and sternum indicate the actual cause of death is to have been an energy burst to the chest, though the pattern does not match any known phaser or disruptor type weapon. A cross-reference against the mining tools used at the colony also does not turn up any matches.
With these results in hand, Marshal Bell, Cmdr. Partav, and Lt. Cmdr. Tir start on the next phase of the investigation, with Lt. Stuart assisting with his local knowledge. Lt. JG Tradis has some ideas of her own, but is reluctant to approach Cmdr. Partav with them at this stage and instead asks Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress and Florence for help. They retire to another room in the medical center to work on Tradis' theory, attempting to reverse engineer the exact type of tool that could have caused the plasma burns seen on the body.
Marshal Bell pulls up Hawkins' work logs, alongside the security camera footage of the Sky Train stations the miners use to get from the colony to the second peak mine site. An anomaly is immediately found when the records show Hawkins clocking in and out for a full day and half after his time of death, with the camera footage showing a clear discrepancy in the head count of miners coming up one short of what the clock-ins and -outs indicate should be there. Clearly someone continued to clock in and out with the deceased's pass after his death, presumably the killer or an accomplice in an attempt to hide the crime. Meanwhile, Tradis, Ahn'Kress and Florence have managed to run some simulations and, given the tight control of equipment at the mines and the lack of replicators at the colony, the most like source of the murder weapon is that it was replicated by one of the colony Exocomps. Tradis brings her theory to Cmdr. Partav, who is a little upset and scolds her for not coming to him in the first place, but does appreciate her efforts and the results.
At the same time, Lt. Cmdr. Tir has been going over the tricorder scans from the site where the body was found. Based on the blunt force trauma, she is able to calculate the approximate height the body would have fallen from, a height that neatly aligns with the altitude the Sky Train runs at. Additionally, the body and crime scene contained traces of gallicite contamination, which could only have originated from the mine in the second peak. By this point in time the last shift of miners has returned with the day's haul, so the Sky Train is back at the colony site and Marshal Bell takes the Starfleet team there to examine the train cars, mostly the cargo cars as no one could have thrown a body from the passenger car without one of the other miners noticing. While Lt. JG Tradis searches for biological traces on the roof of the cars, Lt. Cmdrs. Tir and Ahn'Kress examine the cars themselves. Very quickly their search turns up something extremely suspicious: a smuggling compartment built into the bottom of one of the cargo cars.
Security Officer's log, Stardate 57699.8. The discovery of a smuggling compartment in the cargo container tells us how the victim's body was moved without anyone noticing, and the timing of when we believe it was dumped coincides with the Sky Train's scheduled return trip to the main colony. This indicates that the murder mostly likely happened at the new mine on the second peak. If my suspicions are right, the smuggling compartment might also help explain the explosion at the Terraforming station, but I will need to check with the Science and Engineering teams to confirm my hypothesis. Unfortunately, if I am correct, that won't help us identify who killed Hawkins or why.
The smuggling compartment is relatively shallow, indicating that while the body would have fit, it would be difficult for a person to maneuver. Cmdr. Partav and Lt. Stuart both wonder if it might have been Exocomps, but there is no evidence of that. Lt. JG Tradis crawls inside to get better scans, and discovers traces of fossilized material. Remembering the large fossil skull on the Governor's office wall, Partav asks Marshal Bell about it. He informs the team that the skull was found in the new mine, but that at the request of the colony's science advisor, Dr. Moira Melo, the tunnels where the fossils were found were closed off to protect them until the Federation Science Council could send a team to investigate them properly. Since these would be fossils of an unknown species, Partav notes that there would definitely be an interstellar black market demand for them, making the fossils an item worth smuggling.
The investigation moves over to the new mine on the second peak. Marshal Bell has to follow up leads at the colony, but arranges for the Away Team to use one of the colony's old Class C shuttlecraft. To guide the team at the mine site they are joined by the shift chief of the miners, who turns out to be Loto's cousin Mo'e "Mo" Lanae. Lt. Cmdr. Tir pilots the shuttle, with the atmosphere in the craft somewhat chilly due to Mo's attitude towards his cousin. Loto attempts to smooth things over, but Mo is already upset over the murder of one of his team plus the revelation of the smuggling, so is not up for any small talk.
Once they dock at the airlock at the second mine the team goes in, noting the decontamination systems to keep gallicite dust from getting out of the mine. Mo takes them down to the fossil tunnels, where the entrances have been blocked by cables stretched across with "No Entry" signs posted. Tricorder scans indicate that despite the cables and signs, there is indication that there has been recent traffic in the tunnels. The team chooses the tunnel with the evidence of the most recent activity, and when they reach a large chamber it is abundantly clear that someone has been digging something out of the walls. Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress examines the cuts in the wall and confirms that it was caused by an energy projecting tool that has a signature matching the energy that killed Hawkins. Lt. JG Tradis is able to find biological evidence that confirms that this chamber is where Hawkins was killed. At the same time Lt. Stuart scans the walls to see if the tricorders can detect more fossils still buried. Before they can investigate further the team has to evacuate, as their concentrated tricorder scans seem to have triggered a reaction in some unknown minerals in the chamber walls, causing radiation levels to rise to dangerous levels in the area.
Back at the shuttlecraft, Tradis administers Hyronalin injections to everyone to counter the radiation exposure. Lt. Cmdr. Tir sees that there is a message waiting on the console, one that they hadn't been able to receive while they were deep in the mine tunnels. The message is from Marshal Bell, who is alerting them that someone made an unauthorized exit from one of the colony airlocks and he is hoping that with the shuttlecraft they might be able to locate the person. The team takes off and using the shuttle sensors Tradis gets a lock on the target's life signs, showing that they are using a small tri-wheeled all-terrain vehicle. The shuttle catches up to the target in time to see them throwing a small object off of the edge of a chasm. Ahn'Kress is able to use the shuttlecraft's emergency transporter to beam the object on board, and follows it up by beaming up the target of their pursuit.
Lt. Stuart immediately recognizes the man they beamed up as another miner named Toby Karaka. Cmdr. Partav levels his phaser at Karaka and tells him to surrender, but Karaka panics and lunges for the object they had beamed up, which is clearly the tool that killed Hawkins. Partav stuns Karaka before he can reach the object and they restrain him while Lt. Cmdr. Tir pilots the shuttle back to the colony. They hand Karaka over to Marshal Bell, who asks if Partav and Tir can assist with the questioning, as while the murder is a local matter, the artifact smuggling definitely falls under Starfleet's jurisdiction.
To put Karaka off balance, Mera starts the questioning with the smuggling operation. Karaka does not resist long before spilling everything. He names another co-conspirator as a Tellarite technician named Klem Horne, who was the main brains of the operation. It was Horne who built the smuggling compartment and arranged to smuggle the fossils off-world. As the team had suspected, the tool had been replicated by an Exocomp, in this case one of the older ones, a second generation Exocomp named Bob whom Horne had talked into creating the tool for them. When they get to Hawkins' death, Karaka claims it was an accident. They had been in the chamber digging out more fossils and had gotten into a heated argument, during which there was a struggle and the tool accidentally discharged, killing Hawkins. It had been Horne's idea to bring the body back in the smuggling compartment where they could figure out what to do next, but in his panic Karaka had not sealed the compartment properly, which is what led the body to fall out and land where it was later discovered.
The Marshal leaves the remaining questioning to the Starfleet officers while he goes off to locate Horne, only to discover that the Tellarite has already fled up the space elevator, but not before murdering the Exocomp Bob. Bell informs Partav, who contacts Capt. Mitchell up on the Melbourne. Checking with the orbital station, they confirm that Horne had arrived on the station but was no longer there. Shortly after Horne had arrived the Tellarite freighter had left orbit, so Mitchell orders Lt. JG Reydon to lay in a pursuit course.
The Tellarite vessel had not yet gone to warp, so the Melbourne easily catches up to it. They hail the ship and Mitchell orders them to stand down. The Tellarite Captain threatens to file complaints, but as Mitchell lays out the details of the situation the freighter's First Officer starts giving the captain a look. The First Officer confronts the Captain, calling his bluff that he knows nothing. Scans soon confirm that there are contraband fossils aboard, so the First Officer relieves the Captain of command and invites the Melbourne to send over security. They discover Horne aboard and take him, the Captain, and other crew members that they discover were part of the smuggling operation into custody, leaving the First Officer in command of the freighter to take it back to the colony's orbital station.
The Melbourne remains on station for a few more days while the engineering teams finish installing the new Terraforming equipment. During the murder investigation, Lt. Cmdr. Tir had noted the gallicite contamination on the body, and that there had also been some in the smuggling compartment, so she had contacted Chief Engineer Tarka with some suspicions. Tarka was able to confirm there was gallicite contamination in the debris of the original Terraforming equipment. Due to the less than sterile smuggling compartment, gallicite dust had been leaking out and every time the Sky Train passed over the Terraforming site some would get pulled in until eventually there was enough that all it took was one wrong contact for it to react and set off the chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the equipment.
By this time the news of the murder and the smuggling operation has spread through the colony. Despite there being no evidence connecting him to either, the mere fact that the Governor had a fossil skull in his office (the first discovered, before the tunnels were closed off) is enough to cause him to lose the support of the colonists, with calls for him to resign beginning to grow. Chief Tarka also points out that the newer Terraforming equipment is more efficient than the decades old technology it is replacing, which will bring the timeline of the terraforming of the planet up by ten to twenty years. It is becoming clear that things will start to change rapidly in the coming years, so the colony will need to be prepared for the upheaval. Loto makes sure his family understands this, as he realizes that by the next time he gets a chance to visit Drake's Folly will probably be a very different place.