In an effort to find refugees and warn them, and perhaps gather more forces for the Republic, we took a visit to Crateris. Once a failed Romulan colony, fellow Remans were relocated there, but I had never been, even though it was the new Reman homeworld. Many considered it to be an improvement over Remus from the newsletters and personal postings I have read. That all changed, however.

 I was enjoying the cool darkness of the planet, but moments after landing I noticed something wrong. More of the mysterious allies of the Tal Shiar. Their touch is tainting everywhere around me. I was hoping to meet see about some friends who had come to Crateris, but unless great fortune was at the ready, I wouldn’t have any time for personal matters.

Not that this wasn’t all personal to begin with.

After a few firefights with Elachi and some Tal Shiar condor snakes, we rescued Zdek, and soon were joined by his daughter Veril. I explained how the Tal Shiar had destroyed Virinat, and they were coming to Crateris to crush it too.

He supplies us with some weapons and we headed to help repair a broken transmitter, supposedly being repaired by one Slamek.

On the way there was more Tal Shiar forces which soon lay dead at my feet.

Unfortunately, one of the Elachi drones was sabotaging a shuttle. I destroyed it, but not before it had destroyed the shuttle.

We met up with Slamek. I had an immediate dislike of the man. He was very pessimistic and not very helpful. Seemed a bit suspicious too. If he had actually managed to help, perhaps I would have changed my mind.

However, all he did was say what couldn’t be done, and when he did eventually help, the results were unsatisfactory.

In the process of protecting the comm array, we were attacked and I had some trouble with some kind of anti-personnel drone.

The comm array managed to become more damaged in the process. Either it was damaged in the fight, or Slamek is incompetent. I didn’t notice any marks that looked like they were from the Elachi.

Despite the destruction

of the array, it was the least of our problems.

As we headed back to Zden, an Elachi attack ship replayed the destruction of Virinat.

We got Zden and Slamek to a shuttle, but Viril insisted on coming with us, and her engineering experience is very welcome aboard the ship.

I just wish I could say things got better off planet, but during Zden went missing during the battle.

My crew is growing, as are the forces for the Romulan Republic. I hope it is enough.

Some have asked how I get the photographs. I took a floating camera from Lady Hedon on the way out. It’s programmed to record and I take stills from the video. The programming it came with does a good job of getting dramatic shots, as it did in the arena.