Nexus - Thirteenth Season

The thirteenth season of Nexus has just started, so as of yet, there is no season review. The season ranking will be adjusted as epsiodes are played.

The thirteenth season of Nexus was rated at:

Thirteenth Season Episodes

264. Psychocrypt (AA, MDW, RL)

The year is NY 512 and the NS Endeavor is helping the Hesperian Empire recover in the aftermath of the AIC War, which ended five years earlier.

In their first mission, Captain Ara Linser, and Commanders Duke Ingram and Zhvaezhvh investigate the disappearance of cargo ships in the Keshia region and discover that the Psychocrypt is back in operation, and equipped with a prototype Crown cruiser that has a cloaking device.

( Episode theme: "Freak on a Leash", by KoRN )

265. The Lotus Cult (AA, MDW, RL)

The episode starts with the NS Endeavor investigating a distress call near the Hesperian world of Odawara. The whole thing turns out to be a ruse, and the ship is ambushed by Hesperian raiders using dual-warhead technology which allows their attacks to puncture the shields of the Nexus ship.

The Endeavor is able to make the jump into subspace, but so too do the raiders, who continue the attack. The damage caused to the ship's engines is such that the computer slaved to the warp core is about to shut the engines down. Realizing that the ship needs to remain at FTL speeds if they are to be rescued, Ingram shuts down the core's computer and regulates the flow of both the matter and antimatter streams manually!

Once the Endeavor is safely at the Ophir shipyards, Zhvaezhvh demands that the Endeavor either be scrapped or substantively refitted to allow it to withstand more damage. NSF Command agrees, and decomissions the ship to start the process of a full refit.

While on Ophir, Ingram and Zhvaezhvh are approached by a Nexus senator who asks them for assistance in retrieving his daughter, who has run off to join a myshi sex cult located in the Hesperian badlands. While they are in the midst of considering this, both Ingram and Zhvaezhvh are stalked by an NIS officer who is also interested in seeing the senator's daughter safely returned; it seems the senator is from an influential member of Nexus and is thus a target for blackmail.

The NIS officer is revealed to be the Endeavor's new First Officer, who reactivates both Ingram and Zhvaezhvh and temporarily transfers them into the NIS. Under NIS auspices, the mission to retrieve the girl is launched.

Once at the planet, the group discovers that the cult has been taken over by a psionic-enabled woman known as Lotus who is emitting psionic waves that keep the people of the cult in a sexual stupor in a rather large orgy pit around her. They manage to retrieve the senator's daughter when she leaves the orgy to retire for the evening and they have no trouble getting her off-planet.

( Episode theme: "A.D.I.D.A.S", by KoRN )

266. Family Feud (AA, MDW, RL, JZ)

After the Endeavor is decomissioned for an overhaul at Ophir, the group heads to the planet Sunday for some R&R. While there, they save a teenage girl from armed thugs who are chasing her. She informs them she is a member of one of the ruling families, and the thugs were employed by a competing family. She asks the group for help.

The group decides that they certainly don't have the manpower to assist, so they take the girl and head to Nexus to enlist the aid of Starfleet. However, when they arrive, the admiral commanding the Nexus Offworld Colony tells the group that Nexus considers the feud between the ruling houses to be a matter of internal security, and therefore, no help will be available. In the meantime, Captain Linser is visited by a shadowy figure who tells her not to return to Sunday, because she will be killed. At that time, Linser notices that the figure does not have a reflection. The visitor transports away and Linser reports the case as a vampire sighting.

The group is informed that there has been a change of heart, and that NSF marines will be available for an assault. For the most part, the atttack goes off without a hitch, but both Ingram and Zhvaezhvh begin having painful visions of a staff that seems to be calling to them. Also, Zhvaezhvh finds a group of three vampires, and a fourth tells Zhvaezhvh that he is too late, that the vampires are everywhere.

The group uncovers a vault, and inside the vault is the staff from the visions, and a circlet. The staff identifies itself as the Staff of Estirun. As a gloved Ingram takes both the staff and the circlet, the circlet attacks him and knocks him unconscious. As he falls backward, Zhvaezhvh catches Ingram, and the circlet.

The group returns to the planetary assault ship and they put the Staff of Estirun in the ship's vault for now, but Zhvaezhvh refuses to give up the circlet. He is knocked unconscious but still will not release the circlet. He is put in a holding cell.

The ending scene reveals that the admiral at the NOC is actually a vampire.

( Episode theme: "Rule the Planet", by Paul Oldenfold* )

* track is a remix of a track from the "Planet of the Apes" soundtrack

267. The Jhi (MDW, JZ)

Duke Ingram manages to convince Nexus Starfleet to allow them to care for Zhvaezhvh, and soon welcomes Lt. Kusak Aldetaan to the crew as the science officer. Both Zhvaezhvh and Aldetaan are of the Jhi, and both of them begin to suffer from bouts of unconsciousness which are determined to be the psychic backwash from the deaths of hundreds of people at the same time. These murders are at the hands of Vedren, a rogue Jhi who wants to bring the society down.

Investigation of Vedren leads to the planet Trent, a planet outside Nexus territory. Once the group gets there, they confront a repressive planetary regime that rigidly enforces its rules and does whatever it can to make itself an annoyance.

In the end, Vedren narrowly escapes from a warehouse on the planet's surface and tries to escape by outmanuvering the group's shuttle. Failing this, Vedren attempts to jump to warp while within the planet's atmosphere. The attempt fails, and the ship explodes.

( Episode theme: "Southern Sun (Bunkha Track)", by Paul Oldenfold )

268. The Test Range (MDW, JZ)

The research company working with Duke Ingram on his cloaking device project tells him that they are ready to test the device. On the eve of the test, Ingram and Zhvaezhvh are visited by Malik, who attempts to convince them to cancel the test by showing them a possible response from the Drolian Empire.

The test is allowed to go forward, and the group are escorted to a ship at the Koberon Test Range, on the other side of the Nexus star system. The test seems to be going well, except that Aldetaan detects a dimensioanl bulge covering the area around the test range. Starfleet allows the test to go forward despite the abnormality.

The test works, except that Malik interferes, sending Ingram and Aldetaan to a mirror universe, where they have to re-engineer that universe's version of the cloaking device to send them back.

( Episode theme: "Sandstorm (JS 16 mix)", by Darude )

269. The Labarynths of Caskel (MDW, JZ)

The group travels to Caskel to investigate the murder of several miners. Once there, they discover that the villain Scarecrow is attempting to obtain boromite to use against the planet Tarkon.

270. In All The Chaos (RL, JZ)

An explosion at the presidental residence kills the Nexus president, the vice-president, and the Fleet Admiral, leaving the commander of the NOC in overall control of Nexus.

Lukas DuMarche appears to Zhvaezhvh and Aldetaan and puts them on the trail of a coven of vampires. The trail takes them to the outlaw world of Tortuna, where they force Geezy the Pedulant to show them to an old woman who knows the location of the coven. Unfortunately, the location is on the planet Hengshan, in Hesperian territory.

After managing to make it through the Hesperian space in the vicinity of Odawara, The group gets to Hengshan escorted by another Nexus ship and a Hengshan cruiser. Once there, they are allowed to complete most of their mission. However, in order to attack the vampire coven, the group orders phaser fire on the planet. They manage to destroy the vampires in their underground chambers.

Meanwhile, the first officer manages to fend off an attack by the vampires that crew the Nexus ship that escorted the group to Hengshan by boarding their ship while most of them were involved in taking the planetary assault ship, and using ultraviolet light on the vampires there. Realizing that the PAS was almost totally under the control of the vampires, the first officer tapped into its controls and ordered its self-destruction.

As the group heads home, it is attacked by a Hengshan fighter because of the phaser assault on the planet, but the fighter is captured.

All of this raises a diplomatic incident. The fighter and pilots are returned to Hengshan, and Nexus promises not to develop subspace disruption weaponry, which they consider extremely dangerous anyway.

The way in which the mission ended provides ample evidence against Zhvaezhvh and Aldetaan, as the explosion is ruled to be the work of vampires. The commander of the NOC (a vampire himself), has both of them arrested and thrown in the brig. The ship they were on is given no rest, and is instead sent to the Markann border.