Chapter IV: Prisoner Exchange

"We're engaging transporters now. Those imprisoned spacefleet officers better be in perfect shape or else", Thompson says.
The captain of the Four does not respond to that but a minute after Moira initiates the restoration of the Verons, your sensors pick up that the Veron shuttle is moving back out of the hangar bay and the Veron captain speaks up: "The revivification of the first group has been successful, although my doctors tell me they are in bad shape. Your engineers calibrations must not be exactly right, commander. We will take care of the revivified and compile some information you can use to adjust the transporters. We can continue with the next group in fifteen minutes."

"Understood. That is a shame. I was hoping we could improve the conditions for the next group of our people. But if that is not the case, then we will proceed like this. They will recover. We will send out the next two shuttles as soon as we can. Please monitor the next revivification closely. Maybe you will be able to pick up some way to improve the conditions before we restore the Second Generation."
He interrupts the connection for now. Thompson speaks up before you can do anything else. "Okay, listen up, Junior. We got four people in here. Two ensigns, one Lieutenant, one civilian. They're still being treated by medical staff but the preliminary report is in. They're malnourished and seem to have some psychological issues but my doctors say they'll be fine in a few days. There's no indication of abuse or physical torture yet but we'll keep looking. And we still have our security teams ready to deploy if there's anything fishy going on."

"No androids here, unless you count the civilian's artificial leg. Why? Anything you're worried about?"

"Oh, don't worry, Junior, I won't let anything happen to your ship" You can practically hear the smug grin in his voice.

A few minutes later, you reestablish communication with the Four and again, two shuttles leave the Veron ship. You can't tell if they're the same or different ones as before but either way, they're the same designs.
Again, one ship makes it's way to the Potential's hangar bay and one stays outside in open space.
"Beaming over the prisoners now", Thompson announces.
The Veron captain explains: "You can start the procedure for the second group now. Again, four people, and don't restore the Second Generation yet."

The procedure repeats itself, identical to the first time. The Dove beams the humanoid prisoners over and Moira engages the rematerialization of the Verons onto the shuttle. The shuttle leaves the hangar bay and moves back to the Four.
Moira uses the time between this exchange and the next to look over the scan results and transporter logs for the second restoration, checking to see if she can improve the procedure.She manages to make some tweaks to the system that should improve the condition of the next group of Verons to be revived.

The next exchange goes off without a hitch too. Thompson beams out the prisoners, Moira restores the Verons, the shuttle moves them to the Four.

A few minutes later, two shuttles emerge from the Four again. Your scanners pick up that the larger, Veron design shuttle has four lifeforms on it while the smaller one, which should carry the humanoid prisoners for the exchange, only has one. You also read that there are two spacefleet commbadges on the shuttle, however.
The captain of the Four, who has been mostly quiet until now, speaks up again: "Commander, the exchange has gone off without difficulties so far. I hope we can continue like that. All our people have been revived, except for one, the one that matters the most. Please, restore the Second Generation Veron onto the shuttle now. The other shuttle holds both prisoners we have taken from your vessel, the human and the robot. We apologize for the condition that the robot is in but he attacked us and we had no other choice. Because of that, we are trading them both for just one of us."

The crew of the Potential finishes up the exchange, successfully restoring the last of the Verons onto the shuttle and recovering their last missing crewmembers. M1-K3 is severely damaged as he had not been willing to surrender to the attackers. It is possible to repair him and the restoration will be initiated but it will take time during which he will be unable to serve on the Potential. After the exchange concludes, Cass and the Veron captain agree to postpone further negotiations until after Kot, the assigned diplomat arrives. Since the situation has been momentarily resolved, Captain Thompson is soon asked to engage with another crisis somewhere else, removing him from the situation before he could do any damage to Consortium-Veron-relations.

For a few days, there is radio silence between the Potential and the Four until Kot arrives.
The Potential crew introduces the diplomat, who appears to be very competent and due to his unique situation as a joined Grall especially suited for this task to the Verons and after another day of observing to look for any signs of imminent trouble - of which they find none - the Potential finally hands off responsibility for this situation to someone else and leaves the system.

The crew is exhausted, injured and some of them have seen things that have left them shocked and possibly traumatized - But they were successful. Even though they had to work without their captain, they have managed to turn an extremely hostile first contact with an aggressive alien race into peaceful negotiations. Only time will tell how these negotiations will end but the Potential has done all they could to set them up for success.

The Potential now continues its way to Starbase 279, where Captain Darcy will receive the medical treatment he requires and the bridge crew will debrief with a group of admirals that are already on their way to the starbase.

After that, while the damage to the ship is being repaired, the spacefleet officers of the Potential will finally be able to recover from the stress of the mission as the entire crew has been scheduled for two weeks of additional shore leave...