Star Trek: Elite Force II Diaries Part Five

This is my exploration of Star Trek: Elite Force II where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. Now let’s continue Star Trek: Elite Force II…

Lieutenant Munro’s personal log, supplemental. Having saved everyone on board an alien space station, the captain had sent me to the library to do research…

There were probably some lower deckers more suited to finding out who disliked the Attrexians, but Cpt. Picard saw fit to send a seasoned lieutenant to do it instead. I left sickbay — despite deck signs indicating otherwise, it wasn’t main sickbay, though it looked eerily like Voyager’s sickbay — and went to Deck 11 where I bumped into En. Murphy. She was eager for action, so I told her that she and En. Gonzales were both on the Hazard Team, then I asked her to help me look into the Attrexians.

We both dug into terminals in the library, checking entries on the Attrexians; they were a race dedicated to production, creating items desired by neighbouring systems. Their ruling council was primarily female, their military was male-dominated, and they used the Idryll as vassals. Murphy suggested that the Romulans may have sent the creatures, to prevent Attrexia from joining the Federation and thus giving prime real estate to Starfleet, right along the Neutral Zone, but I figured they wouldn’t send bioengineered lifeforms to do it.

Picard ordered me to the Hazard Team briefing room, so I hopped in a turbolift and proceeded directly. The captain and Tuvok explained that we were headed to Viok Epsilon V, as we had detected traces of the creature’s propulsion systems there, coming from an area that sensors couldn’t penetrate. I chose En.s Korban, Murphy, and Chell to accompany me

Lieutenant Munro’s personal log, Stardate 57042.4. Enterprise arrived in orbit of Viok Epsilon V and we beamed down, arriving next to a shuttlecraft of unfamiliar design. Following a path around a bluff, we located an Idryll encampment whose occupants claimed to be conducting an archaeological expedition, though they had lost contact with their people inside the ruins. He warned that there were “brood fiends” infesting the area, and we followed the path.

A huge door blocked our way, but I was able to destroy part of a wall and through there work my way up and around to bypass the door. A large pillar fell, blocking my way, but a handy Idryllgicium container (read: explosive) allowed me to fell a different pillar and find a way around. Unfortunately, I was attacked by the brood fiend which swarmed in a way not dissimilar to the creatures on the space station and USS Dallas. However, I was able to modulate my tricorder to override a console and restore power to the area.

Returning to the door blocking my teammates, I was attacked by more brood fiends, but once I had overcome them I opened the door. The control also opened up the stairs to reach the next level where we were attacked by larger fiends. Chell and Murphy suggested that they were adapting their tactics but I hadn’t seen enough proof of that.

Reaching the top level, Chell warned me that the area was unstable and that I should use my tricorder’s structural integrity mode. Instead of that, I just used my hand phaser to blast the floor, dislodging any tiles that might send me to my doom. Disposing of the one fiend in a room with the controls, I let the others through a door rather than having them jump across platforms like I had. Unfortunately, that was also where we found some of the Idryll, cocooned and deceased.

Further along the path, we found a console used to open doors, but Chell had to crack the security on it. We defended him for several seconds and then I opened the doors only to be attacked by a handful of the smaller brood fiends… An energy bridge blocked our way forward, due to the fact that it was malfunctioning. However, with some careful walking, I made it across and restored it to full power for my team, using controls guarded by a larger fiend and some mid-sized ones.

Heading down several flights of stone steps, the area we entered looked like an arena, with another one of the large doors, and not as many brood fiends as I had expected. Until we tried to open the doors, and an absolutely massive fiend revealed itself by absolutely demolishing it! My heads-up display identified it as a Queen Bug, which was certainly a fitting descriptor as we fought it, and it kept launching various coloured liquids at us. It took a few minutes, but we killed it and moved on past it, taking an elevator down into the ruins.

Several doors waited for us as we took a look around the room, but we were distracted by an automated voice calling us an infestation and activating turrets! We destroyed those and exited through an open door, but whatever system was in charge of things was just funnelling us towards the next trap, as doors slammed shut and gas began filling the room. I can only assume that our oversight in not activating our helmets was due to everyone being flustered by the unexpected automated assault.

Chell told me to use my tricorder’s “trace gas” view mode to find out where it was coming from, even though both he and Murphy had their tricorders in their hands… Once I had located the gas vents and sealed them with my phaser, the doors slid open, but man what a super specific function for the tricorder to have?

We exited the gas chamber and followed the corridor through a couple of more doors, before finding ourselves in a tunnel whose ceiling was a forcefield. The automated voice once more called us an infestation as we walked, but we stopped when we saw some of the space station creatures on the floor, dead from unknown means. Another approached us and died suddenly, so Chell suggested we check the tricorder’s bioscanner which showed some moving beams that were invisible to the naked eye. I hopped through them and hit the control panel to disable them — but it put up a force field between me and the rest of the team!

They left to find a way around while I dealt with some more creatures and an automated turret that popped out of the ceiling. There was machinery moving tubes around, so I used those as platforms to reach a door. One of them had a creature in it, but I didn’t know if that meant it had been captured or produced…

More tubes were moving through the next room, so I repeated my jumping and had to destroy another ceiling turret. With no obvious way forward, I activated a panel which turned on the elevators — though I had to ride them on the outside — which allowed me to jump over to another door (guarded by a turret). Again, I activated a panel and rode an elevator as it travelled along a rail, then entered another tunnel using a ladder. There were more energy beams to avoid, and part way through I hit a force field. Luckily, I noticed an access panel in the floor, so I shot it and climbed down and then back up, now on the other side of the force field.

Through a door, a turret tried to catch me by surprise, but I saw it activating. What did surprise me was gas filling the tunnel! I had to hack a console to lift the gas emitters, which allowed me to seal them. As the door at the far end of the tunnel was sealed, I had to use another malfunctioning energy bridge to reach the unlock controls. These stabilised the bridge, but activated turrets and allowed creatures to come and attack me… But Chell reported that whatever I did had helped the others in some way!

Going through the now-unlocked door, I found the rest of my team dealing with attacking creatures. We were back in the room that had originally tried to kill us, but the newly opened door led us to a fancy mural of two Idryll and a beast of burden. Past that, however, was a control room which Chell offered to use to deactivate the security system, while we destroyed the constantly appearing ceiling turrets. Despite some classic Chell freaking out, he managed it and led us into the room where the Idryll had taken refuge.

Introducing themselves as Dr.s Inigor and Kleeya, and explained that the facility we were in is what created the creatures, which they called Exomorphs. They figured that something malfunctioned, which turned them from mindless slaves into mindless killers. Apparently, they hadn’t been here for very long, and clearly hadn’t done enough research before starting production. Despite that, they knew that the factory could potentially keep creating the Exomorphs until the planet was hollow, using inorganic materials to do so, so Murphy dubbed it “Murder World” which was quite fitting. The Idryll asked that we rescue Inigor’s son Krindo, who was on a lower level, so I set off on my next death-defying quest…