Border Dispute (mission)

The USS Ellesmere (NCC-21464) suffers a navigational error and wanders into the Romulan Neutral Zone. Before it can leave, it is fired upon and disabled by a Romulan warbird, which threatens to take the ship and its crew back to Romulus as a war prize. The USS Tempest (NCC-10535) is dispatched to rescue the surviving crew and prevent sensitive intelligence and technology from falling into Romulan hands.

Summary
The Tempest crew arrives at the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone to find the Ellesmere damaged and stranded inside, along with a Romulan warbird carefully over the stranded ship, carefully positioned to prevent it from escaping easily. The Tempest has a brief conversation with both the Romulan commander and the first officer of the Ellesmere, who has assumed command in the wake of her captain's death. The Romulan commander agrees to allow four members of the Tempest crew to beam over to the Ellesmere and tend to the wounded and conduct repairs.

In the course of treating injured crewmembers in Sickbay, Dr. Teal decided to conduct an autopsy on the Ellesmere captain, to confirm the Ellesmere 's doctor's assumption that she was killed by falling debris during the attack. But in the course of the autopsy, Dr. Teal discovers that this is not the case and that she was in fact murdered intentionally. Afterwards, the Tempest crew begin to work towards identifying the culprit. In the course of conducting repairs in Engineering, they ultimately discover that a Vulcan operations officer is actually a Romulan undercover agent. Dr. Teal ordered him to report to Sickbay immediately. Sensing his cover had been blown, the spy proceeded to the ship's shuttlebay to attempt an escape. His attempt was foiled by the Tempest however, who beamed him into their brig before he could effect a getaway.

The Romulan commander attempted to strike a bargain with Captain Maddox, offering to allow the Ellesmereto return to Federation space in exchange for returning her operative. Maddox declined, opening fire on the warbird while Commander Goodspeed aboard the Ellesmere managed to maneuver the ship around the warbird and safely back across the border. Its mission failed, the warbird cloaked and presumably returned to Romulan space.

Background Information
The Border Dispute mission originally comes from the These Are The Voyages... mission compendium book published by Modiphius. Several of the scenario's elements were adjusted or adapted to keep the events consistent with onscreen canon, considering the time period Star Trek: Tempest is set within:
 * The Nova-class USS Nightingale was adjusted to the Merced-class USS Ellesmere, since the Nova-class would not enter service for another three decades.
 * To adhere as closely as possible to established canon that there was no contact between Federation and Romulan elements until 2364, the Romulan ship remains cloaked and communication with the Romulan commander is limited to voice only.