The Odyssey has remained in the system with the moving asteroid belt full of syrillium for two reasons – to fill their holds with the energetic material to offset their fuel, and to finalize coordinates for the gravitic displacement drive Kalen reverse engineered from a Federation database. A Starfleet crewman, briefly ‘upgraded’ by a species known as the Cytherians, relocated a Starfleet ship 30,000 light years in order for the Cytherians to make first contact. Kalen had work with scientists in the fleet for months to test the feasibility of using it as a means for a shortcut. The coordinates required were extremely detailed – it wasn’t like the bearing system used by Starfleet to navigate. But the Banean star charts, retrieved almost a year prior, gave a map for the fleet to try to use in order to take a shortcut.

A few things came up in the fleet while they worked. Lt. Hansen’s appointment to the Posel has revealed an issue with the infrastructure set up by the Sikarians, and Adams’ newest deputy is trying to handle as much as he can alone. The captain’s struggles with her hosts point to Dane, the most severe and most intelligent of her former hosts – but something is preventing the two from connecting. The EMH’s prescriptions and meditation are holding her up for now.

Kalen handled the tech. The EMH tried to counteract the physical effects reported from the jump. Domino handled all the logistical concerns. So when the time finally came, the fleet bid adieu to the Talaxians who had helped them mine, and activated the displacement drive, coordinates set for a small bubble far ahead of the bulk of the mapped space in the star charts. Domino had pored over the charts and selected this spot after considering all the available options, and considered this – a landing zone over 9,800 light years distant, where Baneans had been watching the growth of a chaotic space anomaly – the best option, based on distance and danger.

The transition went smoothly enough – unlike the trajector, which was relatively instantaneous, the drive built up a red-hued subspace rift, the fleet was all tractored together via the Harge, and when the rift was large enough to admit the tethered fleet ships, the Odyssey pushed them forward into it, and far, far away.

The return to realspace was fraught with bright white light. A collision alarm came before the viewscreen provided any meaningful data, and Domino performed evasive maneuvers on instinct, barely avoiding entering the threshold of a subspace distortion not unlike the one they just left, save flooded w/ tetryons and chronitons. The Harge and Posel are both lodged within, though, leaving most of the refugees in peril. One of the ship’s special multispatial probes, modified for anomaly research like this, is launched, and determines that while the anomaly seems to have frozen time for those affected, the Harge is also in the midst of being crumpled by the impact, and may not survive the return to real time.

With Kalen needing to step down the engines after the leap, the solution falls to Domino and Adams. Adams dislodges the Posel enough with the Odyssey’s tractor beam that they can get themselves out for the most part. While close enough to the anomaly, Chief Hegstrom fills the Odyssey with all the crew of the Harge, in case they can’t save the ship. This brings the Odyssey to very much full capacity, but the bulk of the colony ship’s crew are able to be transported over. This takes several hours, but in the meantime, Domino comes up with a plan based upon the spatial phenomena – she inverts the resonant frequency of the drive, using the deflector to fire a beam designed to close the rift. Adams aims and fires the beam, and the rift starts sealing, pushing the Harge out. Quickly, the tactical officer snares the empty ship with a tractor beam, arresting its final movement from the rift. The effort does some damage to the ship’s warp coils, but nothing crippling – Kalen may not appreciate it, but the lives and ship saved are deemed worth the effort by the captain.

The effort ends with several injured on both of the Sikarian ships, a few casualties, and the Harge in even worse shape than it was prior. With barely a third of its capacity useable at the moment, and all the biggest ships in the fleet needing serious repairs after that, the ships start looking at possibilities on the road ahead. The ves’Targ picks up traffic in the distance from two separate polities – the Zahl, and the Krenim. After surreptitiously monitoring their subspace traffic for the better part of a week, the captain decides to assemble an away team to join the ves’Targ in making contact with the Zahl. They seem peaceful, and safe harbor would be appreciated…

Power rationing has begun after Cravic space. With the ship conserving power and handling other logistic concerns, a sudden interruption from Skrillix provide hope – Talaxian miners nearby are working on collecting Syrillium, a highly energetic mineral useable to offset the ship’s power woes.

Arriving near the miners, the Odyssey’s newest tactical officer, Lt. Commander Parker Adams, scans the star system and discovers the mineral-laden asteroids are being accelerated via the ultra-massive blue Star they orbit. Approach is dangerous, and the miners have a shuttle (and their captain) stranded in the belt.

Captain Tchang invites the remaining miners aboard to discuss rescue. She notes a negative reaction to the mention of Skrillix, but she volunteers to pilot a shuttle into the field in order to retrieve their Captain. Kalen joins her on the shuttle, and Adams coordinates with Astrometrics on a course out while the Odyssey carefully keeps pace with the stricken shuttle.

After some hiccups and complications, Kalen gets the Talaxian shuttle working and lashes it to the Starfleet one using docking clamps. Then Tchang manages to pilot the ungainly craft free of the belt, with some timely help from Adams and the Odyssey’s phasers.

The danger passed, the fleet joins the Odyssey, and a more serious mining operation begins. Meanwhile, Kalen’s research into gravitic displacement may lead to cutting a few years off their trip…

Ulun broadcasts fleetwide: "Refugee fleet and your Starfleet minders – know that as this message reaches you, two antimatter explosives equal to 200 isotons of destructive force each have been hidden aboard ships within the fleet. I will detonate these explosives if the following demands are not met:
- The commander of the Klingon contingent and the chief engineer of the Odyssey use the Tiro to dock with the Alanel and join me aboard to discuss the terms of my surrender. A Starfleet representative may join, but if more than three beings enter the airlock, or if any of the three are armed, I will detonate the explosives.
- The Raider and the Odyssey keep their engines unpowered, and remain at least 100,000 KM from the Alanel while our negotiation takes place. If either ship comes closer than that, or any ship gets within 60,000 KM, I will detonate the explosives.
- The shuttle that is targeting the Alanel with a torpedo retreats to 60,000 KM before the Tiro docks. If the shuttle remains when the Tiro docks, I will detonate the explosives.

“You have 30 minutes to comply.”

With limited time, the captain selects her negotiators – Kalen will lead, as a Romulan and as a commissioned Starfleet officer. She looks to Sebastian as well, who readily agrees, though he tells Kalen that the engineer will be the lead here – Sebastian will assist. With the team chosen, Sebastian works to prepare the launch while Kalen focuses on counter-intelligence. At his spurring, the captain invokes the prefix codes of the Alanel, remotely disabling all functions beyond life support. With the Alanel now unable to fully observe the movements of the crew, Kalen uses the sensors to seek any sign of the missing torpedos, the explosives that the Romulans are using to hold the fleet hostage. After some analysis, along with information from the internal scans of the Bio lab explosion, Kalen is able to determine with relative confidence that the Romulans used one torpedo to erase their evidence in the bio lab, and the other is with them on the bridge of the Alanel, behind a scattering field. Thinking ahead, Kalen creates a shutoff switch for the torpedo activated by his tricorder – however, the signal needs to be sent within a few feet to be effective.

Knowing that the Romulans do not threaten the entire fleet, the captain authorizes a risky plan put forward by Kalen – using the approaching Tiro and the retreating John Stewart as a transporter relay to beam a security team aboard the Alanel ahead of the negotiators. As the two support craft proceed with their parts of the instructions given them, Lt. Mackenzie and two other security officers are beamed quietly into a passenger cabin, where they must immediately contend with quieting the hostage Sikarians within.

Separately, Kalen, Plogh, and Sebastian board the Alanel and are greeted by Rossik, the technician of the conspirators, holding two disruptors on them. He leads them to the Alanel’s mess hall, where Ulun has made a farcical attempt at a meal to negotiate over. They sit, and it becomes clear early on that Ulun is not negotiating in good faith – he spends much of his time questioning the negotiators’ motives and philosophies, centering on Kalen in particular but Plogh as well. They do learn some information, though – Ulun and his fellows feel as though the fleet’s trek home is doomed thanks to the unknowns of the quadrant and the Starfleet tendency to prod the unknown, and see the trajector as a means to escape a situation where they have no other means to save themselves.

After the pair make clear their disinterest in Ulun’s opinion, Rossik gets angry and attempts to strike Plogh. The Klingon throws Rossik to his back on the deck without getting up from his chair and proceeds to ignore him. In response (and perhaps realizing his delay tactics are wearing thin), Ulun signals for Nalira to activate the trajector and go before surrendering to the negotiators.

Kalen disarms Rossik and discovers their disruptors have no power cells. They race to join Mackenzie and his team at the door to the bridge, where the controls have been slagged and the door sealed. They’ll have to cut through. Kalen looks to Lt. Mackenzie, who recalls a service conduit nearby. The pair hurry through the back route and corner Kumir and Nalira in the bridge as the trajector is spinning up – along with the overload of the photon torpedo, which they are using as a power source for their jury-rigged trajector. Kumir’s disruptor is not unpowered, and his initial salvo forces the pair behind cover. Trusting in Mackenzie, Kalen leaps forward out of cover as the trajector begins its cycle and dives for the torpedo, activating the shutoff signal from his tricorder as he slides close. Kumir, seeing an opportunity, rushes forward to attack Kalen – and is immediate stunned down by Mackenzie and his rifle.

The torpedo’s overload abates and the weapon shuts off. However, Nalira has disappeared, indicating that the trajector worked and sent her… somewhere. The danger passed, Kalen signals the all-clear to Sebastian, who reports in to the captain. With everything relatively in hand, Kalen hands off command of the negotiation team to Sebastian, who smiles and suggests they all head home.

Once the fleet is back underway, the council of captains calls an emergency session to understand the events that unfolded. Carela Tann calls for the Romulans to lose their seat on the council in light of the situation, but Tchang stands firm – they may be a small contingent, but the Romulans who broke did so as a means of trying to exert control on a situation in which they felt they had none. Taking away their sole voice in their fate only enforces what the conspirators feared. Cowed for now, the call fails, though who sits in the seat is in question for now – Selveth’s health is in question after the neurotoxin, and Kalen sees his serving on the council as a conflict of interest.

With many unknowns still to ponder, three Romulans in custody, and serious repairs to make to the Odyssey, the fleet finally escapes Cravic space and seeks a place to affect repairs.

The fleet traverses Cravic space in relative peace – at least, until Kalen requests an urgent meeting with Captain Tchang. Worse, shortly before the meeting, the EMH reports that T’ven and Selveth have both fallen mysteriously ill. Recognizing the effects of the neurotoxin before, the EMH requests Plogh investigate while the captain talks to Kalen. Plogh recognizes the toxin from the Alpha Quadrant, and strangely, the RNA has his KDF identification number encoded within. This prompts Plogh to explain his familiarity with the neurotoxin to the Captain: he created the neurotoxin that killed that station of Romulans, and the title of Butcher of Adosia Station belongs to him. He and the Captain both express dismay at his checkered past, but acknowledge that this isn’t important here, save as potential motivation for the use of the neurotoxin.

Kalen explains to the captain his doings during the heist and the time since – warned by Selveth weeks prior, he rigged probes to surreptitiously scan the lab occupied by his erstwhile Romulan friends, and learned troubling things. He proceeds to lay out a timeline of events going back to when the Sikarians initially provided trajector technology to the Odyssey’s crew, that culminates in four of the Romulan contingent aboard having reverse-engineered the spatial trajector to power a jump back to the Alpha Quadrant – for them only. For those on the ship powering the trajector, likely death as the ship’s reactor overloads.

Troubled by the coincidence of the plan coming to light the same time as her chief of security and the only other Romulan likely to stop the plan falling ill, Captain Tchang orders T’ven’s available substitute, Lieutenant (JG) Mackenzie, to arrest the Romulans in the lab. They do so without incident – indeed, Ulun, the ringleader, seems to have expected this. Domino descends upon the lab, intent upon the captain’s instruction to disassemble any active trajector – but they find no active equipment. Kalen and Domino are immediately suspicious, and while she digs deeper into the lab, Kalen faces Ulun in the brig.

They verbally spar for some time, with Kalen egging Ulun on via silent disapproval and Ulun’s ego opening him up. Ulun finally acknowledges that they intend to go home, to share the trajector’s secret with Romulus. The Tiro is damaged by its energy, but most Romulan ships use different methods, and would potentially be compatible. The gain in force projection is immense, and would make it possible for Romulans’ reach to far exceed the box the Federation and the Klingons have placed them in. Before explaining everything, he stops short – and an automated program snuck into the Odyssey’s computer activates a modified trajector, transporting all the Romulans out of the brig and seriously damaging the Odyssey for its trouble.

While Kalen diverts his attention to the sudden engineering emergency, Domino and Plogh work to try and identify where the Romulans transported. With investigation and analysis, they pin the destination to the Posel, the fleet’s pleasure barge. Lt. Mackenzie and a security team beam over and are ambushed by the Romulans, who get away and traject again. Plogh orders the fleet to scatter to beyond the distance of the trajector’s range, hopefully preventing another jump. Meanwhile, Domino rigs a probe to emit a neutrino scattering field, interfering with the source of a trajection, and flies out in the John Stewart to help scan the fleet. The group look into the four Romulans’ background, and determine that they are likely Tal Shiar, and are far more trained than the crew realized. The tactical team does a manual check and realizes that two photon torpedoes are missing.

Domino spots the Alanel moving out of formation and, micro-warping to catch up before they can escape, catches them in a tractor beam, threatening them with her “torpedo” and preventing their warping away. The fleet’s ships scattered, bombs potentially hidden in them, Romulans taking the ghost ship hostage, and a dangerous trajector experiment looming, the crew is forced to consider their options…

A daring plan is hatched by the crew. The Cravic warship that assaulted them before is a short distance beyond Pralor space, licking its wounds in an asteroid field. While the fleet heads for the emission nebula that has fuel to top them off, the Tiro and ves’Targ are surreptitiously launched away from the fleet, heading for the warship. The Tiro is cloaked, and the ves’Targ uses its masking circuitry to run “silent”, making for an easy approach to their target. They split up once close, and the Klingon raider, commanded by Plogh, begins firing on asteroids, drawing the Cravic’s attention. Lt. Domino lends her services at the helm as they lead the automated warship on a merry chase through the field.

While distracted, the Tiro slips inside the damaged ship’s shields before they raise. The pilot, Lt. Commander T’Ven, has a bumpy ride to get them close enough to latch directly onto the Cravic ship’s hull, but eventually gets them seated. Chief Hegrom, the Odyssey’s transporter chief and a Tellarite perfectionist, mans the Romulan scout ship’s transporter and beams T’Ven aboard inside a repair bay. Once secure, he is joined by Vulmos and Lt. Hobbs. The trio haul a set of pattern enhancers stealthily through the corridors of the Cravic ship until they reach an antimatter storage bay.

Carefully causing a distraction with his phaser, T’Ven clears a single antimatter storage pod of personnel units, and he and Vulmos set up pattern enhancers. Hobbs isolates the pod so that it isn’t currently moving dangerous fuel around, and then they wait patiently while Hegrom uses the pattern enhancers to beam starship fuel out of the Cravic tank and into a fuel cell set up on the Tiro. While they wait, Hobbs learns terrible news thanks to Cravic intelligence being sent to the terminal.

Once their little bit of piracy is complete, the away team is afforded escape thanks to a timely distraction from Vulmos, who renders the APUs unable to connect to their ship thanks to some malicious programming he had worked up. As they escape, they witness a tremendous explosion where they last saw the ves’Targ. It was a ploy to end the distraction. Lt. Domino performed a daringly executed maneuver while the.Raider released a mine. The enemy’s weapons fire hit the mine, giving the impression the ves’Targ had exploded. In reality, the Raider was floating on an asteroid nearby.

The whole plan successful, the small ships rush back to the fleet to deliver the much needed fuel, and a warning – the Pralor will renege on their deal of safe passage.

The fleet refuels in a nebula and hurries back on the way, only a day or so ahead of the Pralor who are now following them.