Starfleet Design Bureau

[MysteryCPU]

Omake: Soval and the Stingray​

As the Ambassador to Humanity for over two decades, Soval was considered by his people to be an expert on humanity. On their motivations and what their governments were going to do. It was...trying at times. The Humans were a conundrum- the arrogance of the Andorians, the stubborn pride of the Tellarites. One moment as aggressive as the Klingons, but then moments later they embrace logic like a Vulcan. Honestly, they reminded him of his own people. Mostly. And then there were moments like this...

Moments when he stared at the plans for the human's first Warp 3 class vessel on his desk display. He looked at his adjunct, T'Pol, and raised an eyebrow.

"Is the information correct?"

"Yes, it appears so. We received these plans as a...courtesy from the United Earth government," she stated after a moment's pause," We confirmed the information through our own intelligence systems. They are correct."

"But...this isn't a cargo ship," Soval said as he tapped the display," This has three forward-mounted low-yield particle projectors, a plethora of torpedo tubes... and very little cargo space. Considering what the Humans are capable of, this is a military ship."

"Yes, I voiced my observation to the United Earth representative- a Captain Leonard. He shrugged his shoulders and stated that Starfleet had requested a cargo ship and that , I quote, "Those idjits decided that a patrol ship'd be cooler. Not that I can blame them.". I took the liberty of running what he said through the translation matrix, and I believe he is saying that the Starfleet ship designers went against their requested design."

"And were those designers replaced?"

"No. They were given a week of vacation and the naming rights to the classification of ship."

"Why? They disobeyed orders."

"I believe the human aphorism is: close enough. At least, that is what I was informed."

If he weren't a Vulcan, Soval would have pinched his brow and sighed. Instead, he merely tilted his head slightly. "Interesting. Why did they choose: Stingray for the classification name? And the second ship: the Steve Irwin? I have not heard that name before."

"The vessel apparently resembles an Earth aquatic fish."

"A dangerous fish, I assume."

"Not particularly."

"They named a warship after a not-particularly dangerous fish?"

"Yes."

"And Steve Irwin? A noted warrior?"

"A historic conservationist who died to an unexpected confluence of events that ended with a Stingray killing him."

"Is this some sort of mockery?"

"I have been assured by Captain Leonard that it is considered a sincere honor on their part."

"Am I to understand that the United Earth Government asked their Starfleet to build a cargo ship. And, instead, they built a military patrol ship that they named after a fairly non-dangerous aquatic animal? And, they named the second vessel after an individual who died of this non-dangerous aquatic animal?"

"It does appear so."

It was days like this that Soval was reminded that, whether they reminded him of Vulcans, the Humans were truly alien. Or insane.

Perhaps both.

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Reflections, in All Their Forms

Agaron Prime, Antares Sector, Late 2158

Flag Captain Fuku Sukuda of the UES Thunderchild was a well-read man.

Any crewmember or officer of the ship that spent any great amount of time onboard both knew that quite well and thought that it had little bearing on their assignments. Especially now. Here, as 2158, in Earth time at least, threatened to tip over into 2159, they found themselves at a research station and civilian outpost keeping watch as what the Andorian ambassador was quick to classify as 'important weapons data', alongside nearly 8,000 scientists and civilians, was evacuated from the single habitable planet in the system.

All in all, the small task fleet under their command was enjoying the brief respite in combat operations. Warspite, their only sister vessel at the moment, was raising quite the furor elsewhere with her own task fleet, keeping the Romulan fleets busy while they worked. Even still, Captain Sukuda sat in the command chair on the bridge, watching out the viewscreen as the civilian ships slowly began to float away from Agaron 4. He didn't need to look back to know that Rear Admiral Afolayan, the woman in charge of the fleet, was at his shoulder.

Finally, the silence broke. "Captain!" Lieutenant Nelson said as he looked back from his tactical station. "Reading a wolfpack of signatures, 9 in all, coming in from the shadow of Agaron 2."

The wolfpacks had been growing larger since the battle of Denobula. But that didn't matter. They had them outnumbered by 5 ships. "Red alert, all power to combat systems," Sukuda said firmly. "All ahead full."

Afolayan nodded. "Contact the Bentfin and the Spinetail, and tell them to run security for the refugee fleet."

The fleet sprang into action, a well-maintained instrument oiled and tuned to the tempo of battle as they swept out toward their enemies. But even such grand action was mostly undertaken in silence, their intercept course making contact with the enemy fleet halfway between Agaron 4 and Agaron 1. The wolfpack's signatures glided ever closer. Strange, that they'd decloaked this far out.

"They're in torpedo range, sir," Nelson said.

"Full barrage on the lead warbird, then pairs on any vulnerable enemies that come up on the fleet tac-net on my mark," Sukuda replied, watching the sensor panel on his chair intently as the seconds ticked by, then green dots resolved on the barren backdrop of Agaron 1. "Fire!"

The buzzing, blaring hum of the photonic torpedoes preceded their brilliant, scintillating orange forms lancing out, accompanied seconds later by their dimmer atomic cousins that glowed a pale white. The warbirds, now almost discernable, began to swoop away in pairs and trios. The atomic torpedoes launched by the other ships began to struggle in their tracking patterns, but the photonics were a more dogged sort, slamming into the starboard stern of their target warbird, two hits on its hull sending a winged nacelle shearing away as it tumbled helplessly towards them.

Then they came into gun range, the stars crossed with ribbons of orange and green as NXs, Stingrays, and warbirds began to engage in the deadly dance of the duel, turning about as polarized hulls clashed with shielded targets. And at the center of it all was Thunderchild, a fortress of energized metal and hyperfocused fire, boring through the shields of the warbirds and offering her cohort opportunities to strike and triumph, one warbird after another soon enough going up in flames as their reactors quenched and exploded.

She still took her licks, of course, warbirds pelting her with fire as best they could. Four topside pulsed phase cannons had been knocked out by the time they halved the fleet, along with three bottom-mounted cannons and an aft torpedo tube.

"Captain!" Sukuda's communications officer called, breaking him from the focus of his task. "The Bentfin is reading four more warbirds decloaking in front of the refugee fleet!"

Sukuda's eyes flashed down to his pannel, and his heart went cold as he saw the truth of it. Four ships, arrayed in a line in front of the fleet and the two Stingrays, waiting patiently for the helpless fleet to reach them. But they just... waited where they were. No engagement, no first strike, everything flying in the face of Romulan combat doctrine as Starfleet knew it.

'They want them afraid before they die.' Sukuda realized as his jaw clenched. 'They want to show how powerful they are to them.'

He looked up at the battle that raged around him. "What's the status of the fleet here?" he asked Nelson.

Nelson spared a glance down at his console. "The Munk's Pygmy and the Sicklefin have taken heavy damage and are peeling off. The Atlantis and the Buran are down a few phase cannons and a torpedo launcher. Otherwise, these last five ships shouldn't be much of a problem."

Sukuda nodded as he looked up at Afolayan. "Ma'am, I'm about to turn this ship around. Shall I inform Captain Koenig?"

"Don't worry about it," Afolayan replied, striding over to the comms station. "Dream Chaser, this is Fleet Command. Thunderchild is breaking off to assist the refugee fleet. Can we leave this in your hands?"

"We'll mop things up here, Admiral." Captain Koenig replied. "Give them hell."

Afolayan nodded, and Sukuda wasted no time. "Bring us about, Ensign, full speed ahead! Inform the Bentfin and the Spinetail we're on our way and tell them to prepare to attack the furthest left warbird on our signal. On my mark, launch a full spread of torpedoes at that target. We'll engage the remaining three."

They worked as he spoke, the ship making the best headway it could toward the fleet in distress, the Romulan screen slowly creeping closer. Finally, as time seemed to stretch its seconds into hours, they were within range. "Torpedo barrage, fire! Helm, adjust heading to face the center of our three ships and begin long-range fires."

The torpedoes flashed away again, slicing through the void and over the heads of the refugee vessels and the Stingrays to slam into the warbird, its shields flashing as they failed, the final torpedo slamming into the hull as it began to maneuver away. The Bentfin and Spinetail leaped into action, peeling away from the head of the fleet to chase their newly vulnerable prey.

The remaining warbirds, however, wasted no time focusing on the Thunderchild, disruptor beams lancing across the vessel's thick-skinned hull as it fired torpedoes and phase cannons at the terrorizing vessels. The battleship wasn't suited fully for this sort of direct, driving attack, and the ship rocked from the impacts as sections of hull polarization faltered and failed. Finally, however, a warbird went up in a brilliant explosion, a twin of the one the two Stingrays had doggedly worn down.

Their focus turned to another warbird, their phase cannons piercing through its shields and scoring one nacelle, then another, the warbird drifting slowly to a stop in front of them, its top side facing them even as it continued to fire.

Then, several disruptor beams scored the front of the hull, the impact of them nearly sending Sukuda and the rest of the bridge out of their chairs. "Damage report!" he shouted.

"Power to the weapons is fluctuating, sir!" Nelson said, panic edging into his voice. "We're down to one forward torpedo tube functioning, and repair teams are being dispatched to torpedo tube 3."

The guns of the ship were silent, the hull pounded on again and again by the warbirds. They needed to do... something.

Then, Sukuda looked at the drifting warbird before them, and an idea clicked into place in his mind.

"Ensign," he told the helmsman, "all ahead full through that drifting warbird."

The ensign, a fresh-faced young man named Quinn, looked at him like he'd gone mad. And likely, he might have. "You want to ram them, sir?"

"We don't have many other options. Do it!" Sukuda stabbed the ship-wide comms button. "All hands, evacuate from the port side and brace for impact!"

He hoped, as he felt them getting up to speed, that his warning had come soon enough, the warbird growing larger and larger in the viewscreen as it fired more and more. Then... impact.

They got lucky enough to clip the bow of the ship, the back of it flipping down on them like a coin landing on pavement before it bounced up off them, debris from both ships mixing as it trailed the now thoroughly ruined warbird. The blow sent most of the bridge, and most likely most of the warship, sprawling on the deck. For long moments, it was still. Surprisingly silent, as if their last warbird was simply aghast at the desperate maneuver.

Then, Sukuda lifted himself off the floor. "Power to the starboard weapons as quickly as possible, then get a firing solution on that last warbird. Quickly!"

The rest of the bridge crew struggled back into their seats, Nelson's fingers flying over the console as he tried desperately to make his captain's orders come to pass. The warbird began finally to fire on them again, yet more of the hull scored by disruptor fire. Then, finally, the starboard weapons that remained roared to life, phase beams lancing out to the warbird as a pair of torpedoes streaked from the remaining tubes toward it. After long, almost agonizing moments, the final warbird detonated.

Captain Sukuda slouched slightly in his chair as he sighed heavily. "Ensign Colms, what's the status of the fleet?" he asked his comms officer.

She was silent for a moment. "The rest of the warbirds have been destroyed, sir. The fleet's returning to us." she paused again. "The Andorian fleet sends their thanks for ensuring their escape."

"Good," Afolayan said, looking down at Sukuda with a critical eye. "Fuku, speaking frankly, I ought to strip you of command for putting your ship at risk like that."

"You'd have every right to, Mosi," Sukuda replied. "That ram was risky. Too risky. But if I hadn't done something..."

He paused, then chuckled softly. "Well, Thunderchild wouldn't have lived up to her name. Or maybe she would have. Who's to say?"

Afolayan sighed quietly. "Well, if nothing else, the civilians are safe." she paused. "I wonder what Wells would think of that."

"I think he'd be impressed his ironclad made it out this time," Sukuda said with a slight grin as they limped back to the task fleet.

A/N: My Thunderchild omake, as promised.

 

[StriderInCosmos]

I meant to have this done by the time our Curiosity-class was done, but as Project Khufu starts finishing up and we get towards another year, here's a story for that upcoming year!

Odessa, Ukraine, 2168

Taisa sat on the porch of her darkened home, the curtains inside drawn shut and the lights outside extinguished, and looked up at the stars, as she did every night before bed.

Her home country had become a remarkably peaceful place in the time she'd spent away from its soil, returning to agrarian roots as it became the breadbasket of Europe, western Asia, and the Middle East. The soil, with Vulcan and Telarite technology, became clean again, and fields of grain stretched as far as the eye could see. But the field of stars was ever the object of her attention, the air clean enough now to allow her to see it in a way that wouldn't have been possible even two or three hundred years ago.

It also allowed her to see, it seemed, the shooting star moving with far too much intention that fell through the sweep of the stars and came to rest up the road from her house. A part of Taisa wanted to retreat inside, wait out whoever was foolish enough to come calling at this time of night.

'Or,' she mused, 'perhaps someone was smart enough to wait for this time of night.'

Sure enough, someone advanced up the trail to her home, a flashlight in hand cloaking the Starfleet member only in enough shadow to obscure their face and rank.

The voice that spoke, however, told her everything she needed to know. "I wondered if you were still doing this, Captain Shevchuk."

Taisa smiled slightly. "You know me too well, Weston. Was I really so important to pull you away from the Warspite?"

Admiral Weston Halifax stepped onto the porch, amber eyes glinting alongside his slight grin in the repositioned glow of the flashlight. "Actually, yes, captain, seeing as she's in for her scheduled yearly maintenance. As much as I appreciate the view as well, could we go in and talk?"

Taisa sighed as she stood from her comfortable porch chair and opened the door to the dimly lit home. "Please, Admiral, just call me Taisa. I'm neither a Starfleet captain nor a Shevchuk anymore."

"I see. You got married?" Weston said quietly as they turned on a kitchen light and sat at the table. "Can I guess who it was?"

"No," Taisa said glibly. "But I'm pretty sure I can guess why you're here."

Weston sighed as he nodded. "You always were a sharp tack."

"Well, as much as I've wanted to get back up there," Taisa began, "there's always been the fact that, frankly, my name's still probably considered bad luck when it comes to the captain's chair. But…"

She paused and sighed as she brushed blonde hair away from uncertain green eyes. "Now I have a husband. Two little ones, all waiting for me in bed."

There was a quiet shuffle, and Taisa and Weston both looked into the hallway, Taisa smiling slightly as she saw the two inquisitive pairs of eyes looking out at them. "Or at least," she said as she stood, "they should be in bed. Ashley, Jill, you're very daring with school in the morning…"

She paused in front of her daughters as she regarded the man behind them, short brown hair tousled as brown eyes gleamed with both amusement and all-too-slight guilt. "Leon… you've got work in the morning," she said with playful reproachfulness.

Leon stepped forward into the light, kissing Taisa gently. "You know we wait up for you when you go out and watch, schastlivaya," he said, knowing that Taisa would chuckle softly at the word.

"Ah, Leon," Weston said, drawing the attention of the couple back to him and his now wider grin. "I wondered why you stopped being Commander Kennedy around the same time as Taisa."

Taisa and Leon sat back at the table after a moment ushering their girls back to bed. "We met while I was recovering from that skirmish out past Aldebaran," Taisa said. "He was waiting for a new vessel, too. It was all we needed to start talking. We both celebrated when we were announced as captain and XO of the Burya. And we mourned when it was destroyed. Leon was there with me through the worst of it, sticking up for me, however much good it might have done. And he was willing to resign with me. That's when we knew we loved each other."

Weston smiled warmly. "I'm glad to see you both doing well. And, in fact, I think I'm able to extend my offer to both of you."

Leon frowned. "Wes, we've got children to look after. A home to tend to. We can't just walk back into the stars and away from this."

"I understand," Weston said with a quiet sigh. "But the fact of the matter is that the Romulan War didn't just burn through our ships, it burned through our crews. Starfleet needs people, good people. It needs people like you two. And honestly… it's willing to bend the rules to make that happen."

As Taisa and Leon's brows rose, Weston continued. "We could put you on the same ship. Hell, we could probably even make you captain and XO like you were supposed to be, and Command would only do some grumbling and griping."

"When we could be away for months, years at a time in an NX?" Taisa asked. "Missing our children?"

Weston smiled slightly. "I've got you covered there. You see, our new class of ships, the Curiosity-class, is starting to really come out of the docks. Scientific surveyors that are meant to go around Federation territory and look at cosmic anomalies, unexplored solar systems, and other scientific curiosities. It's not meant to range terribly far on its own, and your children could be housed at the nearest starbase or friendly planet. They'd likely never be more than a year away if that. They'd be able to stay here on Earth while the surrounding sector gets investigated."

Taisa and Leon were silent for long moments, looking at each other and speaking in a way that Weston could never hear.

Finally, Leon sighed quietly as he looked back at Weston. "We'd need to have time to make sure the house is in order."

"We can give you that easily," Weston said assuringly.

"Good," Taisa said. "So, this ship, what's his name?"

. . .

Space. The final frontier.

These are the voyages of those who strike out… and explore.

Their enduring mission; to seek out new life and new wonders throughout the galaxy.

To boldly go where no one has gone before.

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Horizons

. . .

3 Weeks Later

Captain Taisa Shevchuk (using her maiden name for her role) and Commander Leon Kennedy sat inside the shuttlecraft as they headed towards the waiting spacedocks of the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, a scattering of drydocks that had been built up rather heavily as the war with the Romulans reached its end. Both were somewhat busy looking down at crew manifests and ship overviews.

"She should be coming into view in a few minutes." Admiral Halifax said, sitting across from them and looking out the window at the shipyards.

"She'll be quite a sight, it seems," Leon said as he looked at his tablet. "Some of the best scientific suites I've ever laid eyes on, a warp engine almost capable of reaching Warp 7, brand new phaser emitter banks, shield emitters…"

Taisa frowned slightly. "De… Commander," she said. "Take a look at this."

Leon leaned over to look at the tablet that Taisa proffered, and Halifax arched a brow. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Taisa replied, looking down at the picture of Lieutenant Tana Raona. "I'm just a little… surprised, is all. What's an Orion woman doing as the chief engineer of the vessel? I wasn't under the impression that we were on good enough terms to have people immigrating here."

Halifax sighed quietly. "I'm surprised you hadn't heard about Lieutenant Raona. She and her husband applied for political asylum after running away from their master's death. She's been through a real rough time, but she stuck it out all through the academy and has proved herself thus far. I think she'll be a fine addition to your crew."

Taisa nodded, but even still, the thought of an Orion being aboard her ship in any capacity unsettled her. The Orions had largely earned their reputation as thieves, con artists, and slavers. But she still needed to give the Lieutenant a chance.

"Here it is."

The trio stood as they came into sight of the drydock, and saw their ship come into view, the name Sojourner emblazoned on the hull under its bridge. Below its name was the designation 'NCC-497'.

"Wow…" Taisa said quietly as they went across a scenic route that stretched the length of the ship. "She's almost as big an NX."

"We built her to do her job well," Halifax said with a proud smile. "Your 70 crew members are the best we can find from every branch of science that we can think of out there. I do have to admit, the competition for getting onto one of these ships has been fierce."

"I'm sure they're all capable," Leon replied. "When are we taking her out?"

"The scientists are making sure that the various labs are fully stocked for their first time out in space, along with final engineering checks before she leaves the dock. From what I've heard, it shouldn't take much more than a day and a half to get your ship out into the void." Halifax said. "They're particular like that."

"I suppose that's not unreasonable," Taisa said wryly as they slowed to dock inside the rearward bay of the ship. "I'd hate to be missing a beaker or calipers when it might take us away from whatever anomaly is the focus of the day."

They landed gently in the shuttle bay, the shuttle doors opening to the shrill tune of the bosun's pipes. Taisa was, by her right as captain, first out of the shuttle, a line of red tape demarcating the shuttle's 'dock' from the rest of the ship.

The boarding party was comprised of 5 crewmembers, all wearing uniforms that reflected Taisa's, a blue flight suit with a stripe of red, teal, or yellow going down the chest. There was talk of going completely monochromatic with shirts and black pants, but the notion seemed somewhat cartoonish to her. In the middle of the party, a green face stood out amongst the others, her black hair done up in a braided bun.

Taisa paused before the red tape, the woman in teal at the head of the boarding party turning to face her. "Permission to come aboard," Taisa said to the woman.

"Permission granted." the woman replied, and Taisa and Leon stepped over the line.

They looked back at Admiral Halifax, who remained behind. "I'll be heading back to the Warspite now. Good luck to you Captain Shevchuk, Commander Kennedy."

With that, he turned back to the shuttle. "Farewell, Admiral," Taisa said, nodding and looking back at the woman before her. "I would assume that you're the senior officer aboard this vessel then?"

"Lieutenant Commander Halsey, head of the sciences division aboard this vessel." she looked over at the others in the boarding party. "This is Lieutenant Redfield, chief tactical officer, Lieutenant Raona, chief of engineering, and Ensigns Liss and Jacobs."

Taisa studied the crew members intently, the ensigns regarding her with a somewhat guarded look. There were likely still stories going around about her bad luck. But she was stuck in now. No time to worry about that. "Lieutenant Commander," she said, Halsey straightening to attention, "Commander Kennedy and I would like a tour of our command, just so we know the sort of vessel we're coming into."

Halsey nodded. "I'd be happy to give you a tour of the ship. If you'll follow me?"

. . .

Commander Leon Kennedy was impressed with the ship so far. The personnel-graded transporter was still something of a sticking point with him, knowing how unreliable it used to be in the past for anything beyond cargo. But, if it was as safe as the scientists they toured with claimed, then it would likely be useful, once they figured out what to do with it.

The tour was well and truly over now, and Kennedy was in the lone rec room/lounge of the ship taking in the atmosphere of the vessel as the final checks continued. There were several crew members in the rec room at the moment, some quiet conversations going on around him.

"I'm telling you, we're going to have to be careful."

The words drew Kennedy's attention to the two men, Redfield and another man, as they talked, Redfield continuing. "I had an uncle that served around the captain on the Endeavor. After that skirmish, everything she touched went wrong. I'm not saying it's all her fault or anything, but we should keep an eye on things."

Kennedy sighed quietly, standing and walking over to the two men, who paused as they looked up at him. "Commander," Redfield said. "Can I help you?"

"Is there a problem with Captain Shevchuk that she should know?" he asked.

Redfield and the ensign looked at each other before Redfield sighed. "Word still gets around about the Endeavor and the Burya. About the both of you. About how you stuck up for her. And about how you two are married now. Didn't know they allowed that these days."

"Our situation is a strange one, I agree," Kennedy replied. "But I will challenge any rash or foolish decision that she makes, same as if she were just my captain. It's what the duties of command expect of us. And she has nothing but your best interests in mind. She will give what is necessary to make sure that this ship functions well. Can she, and I, expect the same of both of you?"

There was a flicker of challenge in Redfield's eyes as he stood to attention. "Yes, sir." he finally said after a moment.

Kennedy nodded. "Thank you, Lieutenant Redfield. I'll let you get back to your drinks."

With that, he left the rec room, pondering the situation. Redfield might need to have an eye kept on him, just to be sure the crew would remain orderly.

. . .

Captain Shevchuk entered the main engineering section of the ship, the massive warp core dominating the space as engineers of several kinds attended to it, their ministrations and conversations mixing with the powerful hum of the core.

She looked around, walking over to a pair that studied a tablet near one of the nacelle computer banks. Lieutenant Raona and the other engineer looked up at her as she came to a stop in front of them. "Lieutenant," Shevchuk said, "may I speak to you in private for a moment?"

Raona looked at the man beside her. "Henson, can you take care of this for me? I'll be back as soon as I can."

Henson nodded as he took the tablet, Raona walking alongside Shevchuk for a moment. "I must admit, Captain, I wasn't expecting you to come and see me this soon. Am I being accused of something?"

"Knowing this ship like the back of your hand," Shevchuck said with a slight smile. "Care to prove that accusation to me to find us somewhere quiet and out of the way?"

Raona blinked, then looked around the room. Shevchuk waited patiently, knowing that the lieutenant had been here since they'd laid the keel of the ship. After a moment, Raona pointed up at a raised platform with a room on it, no doorway to impinge on the ladder that led up to it. "There's the internal gravimetrics station. It's usually empty around this time, and won't be staffed for another 30 minutes until the next tests of the gravity generators and internal detectors. Does that work?"

Shevchuk nodded. "I'll trust your judgment," she said as they made their way to the ladder. In a moment, they had their privacy.

"So…" Raona said slowly, "what do you want to talk to me about?"

Shevchuk looked down at the tablet she'd carried in. "I have to admit, I'm somewhat impressed by the number of accusations formally and informally leveled against you."

Raona's cheeks flushed a brighter shade of green. "And all of them have been proven false," she said firmly.

"As the records note." Shevchuk deactivated the tablet and set it aside. "But official records can only tell me so much. So, tell me your story."

Raona blinked in evident surprise. "Well… what do you want to know?"

"I want to know how a brilliant young mind came to us from such an unexpected place as Orion." Shevchuk paused and smiled. "No judgment. Heaven knows I've received more than enough myself to not be sympathetic."

It was silent for a moment before Raona sighed. "I and my sisters were young. Not much more than 10, 15 at the most. Our… matriarch, let's call her, Artesia, was raising us to become proper Orion courtesans. Art, music, dancing, homemaking. How people worked and how to make them work for you. Then, our home on Verex III got some new prisoners. Members of Starfleet."

Shevchuk's brows furled for a moment, then she nodded slowly. "That's right. Enterprise had some of her crew abducted by Orion slavers. T'Pol told me about her time there."

Raona nodded. "We met with them briefly before they went up for auction. One of the men, an Ensign… Pierce, briefly interacted with us, along with another Ensign. Kelsey was her name. They were scared, clearly. But there was something… more to them. It entranced me, to see a woman in a uniform speaking to a man as an equal. It must have left an impression on Artesia as well."

"And you escaped?"

Raona nodded. "Artesia poisoned our master. It was a bold move, almost as bold as securing his ship and my… well, my love. After that, we ran, my sisters and even Artesia deciding to make their lives on other worlds along the way from here to Verex. But Naasrev and I, we went all the way to Earth and requested political asylum. And eventually, I was able to join the organization that so inspired me."

It was silent for a moment as Shevchuk took the story in. "You've had quite the eventful life." she finally said quietly.

Raona chuckled. "That's putting it lightly."

"And this Naasrev, he's your boyfriend, correct?"

"Well, he's my husband, now. What we have is… well, a rarity where we're from." Raona paused as she pulled out a physical picture, showing an Orion man somewhere on Earth, dressed in a sharp business suit and holding what looked like a diploma with a wide, almost child-like smile. "He's back on Earth, studying to enter the Daystrom Institute. It's been his dream ever since we've arrived."

"An accomplishment to be proud of." Shevchuk paused. "So, do you… remember your matriarch's teachings?"

"They're part of how I got this far," Raona admitted. "My time with her and my sisters, harsh as it was, is something I cherish."

"So what makes such an expert people person decide to go into engineering?" Shevchuk asked. "Regardless of your appearance or origin, you sound like you would have been a rising star in the diplomatic corps."

Raona was silent for a moment as she looked around the room, filled with instruments, displays, and consoles. "Because the machines don't care what you look like. What preconceived notions there are of you and your people. All they want, all they need, is for you to make sure that they work properly. And they repay you without snide remarks or begrudging attitudes. It's a nice change of pace."

Shevchuk nodded slowly. "I can see what draws one to such a position." she paused for a moment. "Hell, if I was as mechanically inclined, there's a part of me that would probably be right here with you."

Raona looked somewhat surprised as Shevchuk continued. "But I know what it's like to have people drive you somewhere you shouldn't be due to preconceived notions, however true or false they are. Hell, I let them win when I retired. I admire your perseverance against those odds. All that to say I have your back. I'm looking forward to seeing how you make this ship run."

Raona smiled slightly as she nodded, Shevchuk able to see the tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Captain."

"It's what we're here to do." Shevchuk smiled. "Might as well do it well."

. . .

The captain's chair was an interesting change from her last command, a somewhat more plush thing, though not too soft. Captain Shevchuck found it strange for the moment, but she'd get used to it. She always did.

At the moment, as the final checks drew to their close, Shevchuk waited for the word from her commander.

Commander Kennedy looked back from his station. "All decks are reporting ready, ma'am," he said. "Waiting for your orders."

Shevchuk nodded. "Thank you, Commander." she paused as she looked over at the bridge's communication station. "Ensign Travers, shipwide, please."

Ensign Travers nodded, and the speakers played the bosun's pipes. "Channel open, ma'am."

Taisa took a deep breath as she considered what to say. "Sojourner, this is your captain speaking."

She paused for a moment. "Space has always been a great equalizer. Our first forrays into its depths were fraught with peril and personal risk, and regardless of where one comes from, it demands our excellence. That has changed little in the intervening centuries. But first and foremost, space has always held the captivation of the curious ever since we first looked up at the night sky. Now, we travel this sea of stars, searching out her mysteries, as our forefathers have in the past. Would that they could see us now, striding out into the space that they looked up at, to reveal their secrets and learn more about this wondrous galaxy that we, and all peoples, call home. I look forward to seeing what revelations come of our time sailing this eternally vast sea."

She cut off the comms, looking out at the bridge as they began their final preparations. "Dock control is reading ready, ma'am," Travers said.

"Helm is ready." Ensign Issacs said from his station.

"Tactical ready," Lieutenant Sanders said from his station, "and course out of dock is laid in."

"Maneuvering thrusters, Ensign Issacs," Shevchuk said, "and take us out of the dock."

"Aye ma'am, taking us out of dock. Thrusters at stationkeeping."

Shevchuk waited patiently as the ship hummed a little more insistently, the thrusters activated. "Thrusters ahead. Take us into the sea."

The thrusters activated, and the ribcage-like dock slowly slipped out of sight around them.

After long moments, Ensign Issacs spoke again. "We've cleared dock, ma'am."

"Power to impulse thrusters, full impulse." Shevchuk nodded as they sped up, rotating in the chair to look over at Lieutenant Commander Halsey. "Lieutenant Commander, are there any points of interest that we're being directed to?"

Halsey looked at her station for a moment, then back at the captain. "There's an anomaly logged about 4 lightyears to our galactic southeast, along with several unsurveyed systems in that direction."

"Then that is where we shall go," Shevchuk said. "Helm, lay in a course for that anomaly, Warp 5."

It was quiet for a moment as Issacs plotted the course, a moment that Shevchuk savored with a slight smile. 'Damn,' she mused, 'but it's good to be out here again.'

"Course laid in, ma'am. Ready for warp."

Shevchuk nodded. "Fly away."

The stars warped around her, and in that instant, she felt like she truly had wings again.

 

[Firehawk242]

Admiral Jordan Macnair of the Star Fleet Command lounged untidly in his chair, a vaguely bemused grin on his face. His exact title beyond "Admiral" was still being worked out, what with Star Fleet finally getting around to coming up with permanent nomenclature and ranks to replace the confused medley that was the inevitable result of combining four different organizations into a unifying whole, but broadly speaking Macnair was responsible for the development and requisition of new ship designs and technologies.

"You are looking even more smug than you usually do," Admiral Naith remarked, settling into her chair with Vulcan precision. Her job title had been settled three months ago as the Chief of Requistions, tasked with unifying the logistical networks of the Federation. They had a genial working relationship, particularly with the deployment of the Cygnus class making her job that much easier.

"Smug? Me?" Macnair replied. "Why, I would never!"

"Just because I do not use sarcasm does not mean I do not understand it," was Naith's clipped answer.

"Fine, fine," he said, waving off her criticism. "The SDB just got their newest design to my desk two days ago. It's... certainly something."

"You intend to advance this design for the consideration of Star Fleet Command."

"They did their job, now it's my turn." He shrugged. "You'll see it in the meeting. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."

Naith's eyes narrowed. "You are a uniquely frustrating human at times."

------

"Next item on the agenda," Admiral Shress Ch'kalnes, the Andorian Chief of Staff of Star Fleet Command said, scrolling up on his dataslate. "A report on the conclusion of Project Copernicus. Admiral Macnair, you have the floor."

"Thank you," Macnair said. "Rather than tell you, I think it would be better if I showed you." A few quick taps and he took control of the holographic projector at the center of the table. "So, I think we can all agree that the NX class has served well, but technological changes mean it hasn't aged well. Three years ago, we approached the SDB to design her replacement. This was Project Copernicus."

He tapped his dataslate again, bringing up a hologram of the Enterprise NX-01. A mere twenty years old, and she was already obsolete. He tapped again, and another ship appeared next to the Enterprise. The two ships were broadly the same size, but where the Enterprise was thin and nearly skeletal in places, this new ship was far more solidly built.

"This is the product of Copernicus," Macnair said. "You will note the novel four nacelle arrangement, which is yielding significant increases in warp factor."

Naith's eyes narrowed in contemplation, but it was Admiral Glog Kheblaw, the Tellarite who currently held the title of Commander, Star Fleet, who spoke. "It looks like a modernized and heavier Enterprise," the most senior field commander of the organization noted.

"In a sense," Macnair agreed. "It saves on weight using a new electro-ceramic hull material, a very promising development. Despite the mass savings, it still outmasses the Thunderchild class."

There was a chorus of startled reactions from the assembled Star Fleet Command. Naith's clipped voice cut through the stunned babble. "And what does this ship use this mass for?"

"Glad you asked," Macnair said, tapping his dataslate again. "Here are the specifications for your consideration."

Admiral Ntoya Wallace, the Commander in Chief of Star Fleet and chairman of the meeting cleared her throat. "Perhaps a recess is in order, both to consider this information, and for refreshments. It is just about time for lunch, I should think."

"Agreed," Naith stated.

------

"So," Macnair said, sidling up to Naith during the recess. "What do you think?"

"It is a remarkable vessel," Naith said, paging through the documentation with one hand and consuming a pastry with a name Macnair couldn't pronounce with the other. It wasn't an alien pastry, Macnair just struggled with French. "And an expensive vessel."

"Can we build it?" he asked.

"Obviously," Naith replied. "You wouldn't be presenting this information if the prototype wasn't nearing completion."

Macnair rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant. You know better than anyone else what the Federation's supply lines look like right now. Can we build this?"

Naith considered for nearly three minutes, the silence only broken by the occasional tap on her dataslate and the sound of her chewing at the pastry. "Yes."

Macnair blinked in surprise. "No qualifiers you'd like to attach to that? No demands for it to be stripped back?"

"No," she said. "Were this Vulcan, or Andoria, or Tellar Prime, I would say this ship is impractical and infeasible. But this is Earth. Were I consulted, I would have described the Enterprise as impractical and infeasible, considering Earth's capabilities at the time. I would have considered the Thunderchild equally impractical and infeasible. And for the other members of the Federation, they would have been. But the factors that prevail elsewhere clearly do not apply to Earth. You seem capable of, to borrow a phrase from your people, doing anything you choose to set your mind to. And you are quite capable of setting your collective mind to tasks."

"So you're saying we can afford it, but no one else could pull together the will to make it real?" Macnair said. "Good. Then she's following in the Enterprise's footsteps."

"Indeed." Admiral Naith finished off the last bite of her pastry. "Project Copernicus has my approval, pending final space trials. And I now understand your earlier smugness."

"What? Me? Smug?" Macnair said, putting a hand to his chest. "I would never."

"Your sarcasm is noted. I recommend refraining from using it when you argue Project Copernicus's case in front of the others."

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Chapter 3: Pieces of a Greater Puzzle

Andor, Stardate 911.8, Earth Date 2176

Sub-director Mosi Sukuda of Yoyodyne Corporation's Andor Propulsion Laboratory watched a sunrise on a cold world, the rays of sunlight gleaming over the icy peaks of Andor's most extensive mountain range and sending rainbows out of the prisms that they struck. It was a sight that continued to take her breath away.

There was a chime at the door, and she found herself pulled away from the fantastical sight as she stood to go to the door. "Come in."

The door to her apartment opened, and a Vulcan man was at the threshold. "Good morning, Sub-director," he said.

"Good morning, Reton," Mosi replied as the man entered. "Do you need some breakfast?"

"I have already eaten, Sub-director." Reton, her connection to the scientists and engineers of the current project. "Your concern is appreciated. However, There has been a… complication."

Mosi frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

"It is a situation that would be better explained at the main lab. Will you be ready to accompany me soon?" Reton said, glancing over at the room where her daughter was still likely sleeping.

"Give me a moment to call Mizu's babysitter," Mosi said. One call to Tythe later, and the two were on their way.

"So," Mosi said, "before we get to the lab, how is your family doing?"

"My father is currently serving as an escort to one of the Curiosity-class survey ships undergoing joint training to acclimate Vulcan crewmembers to working on Federation starships. And my aunt is, of course, doing well in her current station, now that the adjustment period has largely passed."

Mosi nodded. It was no surprise that the new Ambassador T'Pol would take so easily to the position of head ambassador of Vulcan. Some small talk later, though, the two of them entered the technically packed, somewhat sprawling complex of labs that the human staff of Yoyodyne had taken to calling 'The Apple'.

"Alright," Mosi said as they came to a nearby console, "what's going on with the Type-3 project? Did one of the prototypes do something?"

"Most of the prototypes have been written off as dead ends of development," Reton said. "The current prototype that has the most promise compared to the standard Bussard ramscoop configuration is a field-focussed injector made to directly enrich warp plasma, theoretically decreasing the mass of any given nacelle by at least 4 percent and raising the maximum warp ceiling by as much as 20 percent."

"Okay," Mosi said slowly, frowning slightly. "So, how did it fail?"

"That is, perhaps, the most interesting part of the current quandary," Reton replied as he opened a video of the small testbed that what was likely the prototype in question gliding through a closed test course before its nacelles glowed more and more brightly before promptly exploding. "It is not that there is, in all technicality, a failure. In fact, the field-focussed injectors seem to be performing their duties too well, overloading current EPS conduit designs."

Mosi's brow rose for a moment. "I'm guessing lowering the power settings isn't an option then?" she asked with a slight grimace.

"Indeed. Lowering them to acceptable power increases puts them behind the current generation of collectors, rendering any new design redundant." Reton replied.

Mosi sighed quietly. "Any proposed solutions so far?"

Reton was silent for a moment, as if considering something uncertain. "There are two engineers who are conducting… experiments outside the purview of the current project. I have been close to reprimanding them several times for their lack of focus, but in this instance… they may perhaps hold the solution that we seek."

Mosi's brow arched slightly. "Are they here at the moment?"

"They should be."

"Lead on then, Reton."

It wasn't terribly hard to find the station that the pair was using, as there was no small amount of mess that surrounded the two engineers at the moment, somewhat ordered in that way that Mosi could tell that the pair had some system of cataloging but little beyond that. And she could tell that one of the pair was a Tellarite from the argument that they were clearly walking into the middle of.

"Don't be so stone-headed. We have to try another bonding agent at this point. This stuff's been failing constantly since we've started putting the components together."

"Not yet, Hund. Even if this particular mixture doesn't fully work, we know we're on the right track. It isn't even affecting the graphene that much."

"That much?" Hund said incredulously as Mosi and Reton turned a corner to see the two men standing over a table that held an EPS testing station that had clearly been added on to. "We're seeing drops of up to 23.7 percent from projections! Even if it's a general improvement, we…"

The two men noticed Mosi and Reton standing and waiting for them, their argument stumbling to a halt. "Oh. Uh, hello, Sub-director." the other man, a human, said in an accent that she vaguely knew. "I hope we weren't… too loud."

"I think we can forgive you if you're willing to explain what has you so spirited," Mosi said. "Please though, remind me of who you are before you get into what's on your table."

"Well," the human said, "I'm Alastair Scott. This is Hund Januklun. We've been working here since the beginning of the Type-3 nacelle project."

"Alright," Mosi said, stepping forward to look at the project, "so what has you two in such a passionate row?"

"Well, ma'am," Hund began, "as I'm sure you're aware, there's a power intake issue with the current injectors that overloads current EPS conduits. We've been tinkering with potential new designs for at least the length it takes to get to a power regulator. Mr. Scott here…"

"I've been working on a combination of a graphene sleeve bonded with a lurandium-duranium alloy outer shell using a nano-emulsion mixture of graphene and halzine tritandadiene," Alastair said, gesturing to what was likely an example of such a conduit. "It's certainly promising, but we are running into complications. As I'm sure you just heard."

Mosi studied the component with a keen eye. This wasn't fully her field of expertise, but time spent in Starfleet had made her familiar enough with electro-plasma systems. This one had a slight blue-green sheen, likely thanks to the lurandium within the alloy. "What kind of outputs are you seeing from this design?" she asked.

"Currently," Hund said, "we've managed to safely reach 1.127 terajoules of equivalent power before having to scale back."

Mosi stood, regarding the two men with a rather shocked expression. "That much?" she said somewhat incredulously.

Reton, who had regarded the whole affair silently for a moment, stepped forward. "And why have you not brought such advancements forward? This current system, even with its faults, would ensure the ongoing success of the Type-3 project."

"We wanted to make sure that it was performing as well as it theoretically could without exploding in someone's face," Alastair said firmly before pausing for a moment. "As it has threatened to several times as we've pushed the limits."

"Well," Mosi said, "we'll make sure that everyone else gets a look at your work so they can help you out with that. This could help us power starships far in advance of what we already have, let alone make the Type-3 work. I commend you for making it this far just on your own."

Alastair and Hund nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. It was getting somewhat tedious to get the matter replicator to produce the alloy for this."

"I'd bet," Mosi replied.

. . .

Several months, and a bottle of champagne, later, Mosi sat in her office with Alastair. "It's been a pleasure to get to know you and see you work here," she said to the man she'd been paying close attention to for the last while. "Earth will be lucky to have you."

"Thank you, miss," Alastair said. "I have to admit, as much as I'll miss Andor's views, it'll be nice to be able to be home in Scotland again while I work."

"Scotland," Mosi said quietly. It was silent for a moment as she mused on the home she'd come from that was now so far away.

"Where are you from?" Alastair asked softly.

"Kenya," Mosi replied. "It's been so long since I've visited. Seen the forests that are growing again."

"Well," Alastair said with a slight smile, "maybe I can go and visit. Take a few pictures, get to meet the family of the director who's helped me get as far as I have, and congratulate them on having produced such a fine woman."

Mosi chuckled. "You'll have to make a stop by Japan too. It's beautiful in the spring when the cherry blossoms fall."

Alastair frowned, then his eyes widened. "Ah, that's right. "You're Rear Admiral Sukuda's wife. I had an uncle who served with him on Thunderchild during the Romulan War. Lieutenant-Commander Crowley."

Mosi nodded slowly. "That's right. Crowley was our chief MAKO officer for the fleet. He could be a real hardass, but he was a fine man."

"I'll be sure to tell him his Rear Admiral said that." Alastair chuckled.

It was silent again. "How's the wee lass holding up, having him be so absent?" he asked.

"As well as she can." Mosi smiled slightly. "He calls as often as he can. Records stories that Mizu listens to as she falls asleep."

"Ah, good," Alastair said with a slight smile. "I hope he comes home safe. I've got a son waiting for me on Earth."

He stood, Mosi standing with him. "So, I'd better not keep Roy waiting. Hopefully, I'll see you again someday, ma'am."

"You and me both."

. . .

"And that's how my granddad helped make this ship's nacelles possible, lass." Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott said as he closed the panels on the EPS conduit in the hall aboard the Enterprise. "It just goes to show that no part of these fine boats is too small, too unimportant. So treat her right, and every part of her will sing."

Ensign Hohlenk, a distant niece of the other man that her engineering chief had spoken so highly and sometimes so humorously of, smiled slightly. "I'm sure Uncle Hund will appreciate when I call and tell him."

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Horizons

Chapter 2: Pressing the Frontiers

Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, 2180

There was a scientifically proven concept to be found, Rear Admiral Fuku Sukuda mused, in the absolutely hypnotic effect that routine paperwork had on the conscious mind. It was a thought that came to him sometimes as he poured over ship assignments, mission reports, and the specially marked reports of discoveries being made by their Curiosity-class surveyors. In particular, the Lunokhod had just finished sequencing the biological profile of an animal species with remarkable self-healing capabilities, while the Yaoki and the Hayabusa had just finished combing over a patch of fascinating gravitic anomalies together that had acted as a sort of 'rink', allowing their impulse speed to increase by a substantial amount. Avidyne would want that data, he was sure.

Before he could go any further, he heard a chime at his office door, drawing him from the rather interesting wording of Captain Ruben's 'ice gliding' report. "Come in."

The door slid open, revealing a man that Sukuda didn't really see around these parts, tucked away as he was. Admiral Ulysses Speyer, the first peace-time member of the newly remade Admiralty Board, was usually in a rather more… public position.

And, as he stepped in, brown eyes gleaming as he took the somewhat spare office in, it was clear that, even still, the man was a little starstruck. "Good afternoon, Rear Admiral Sukuda. May I take a seat?"

Sukuda nodded, Speyer sitting quickly. "So, how's the family?"

Fuku smiled slightly. "Mosi's doing well. Our baby daughter hasn't stopped her from working from home. She even managed to get into a managerial position with Yoyodyne."

The medical retirement of Mosi Sukuda, nee Afolayan, after her treatment had been a matter of much fanfare for one of the youngest Rear Admirals in Starfleet. The relationship that came after, and the marriage ceremony, had been, somewhat appropriately, on the down-low. There had been rumors enough when she had been in the hospital in a coma. Thankfully, her going into Yoyodyne had deflected things somewhat.

"I have to admit, Yoyodyne was not where I was expecting the Rear Admiral to go," Speyer said with a slight grin. "You'd think with how hard their executives try to sell us their products, she'd be tired of them already."

Sukuda chuckled. "They're dreamers, one and all. I think Mosi's just the person they need, to give them a firm hand on the rudder so as not to steer into a rogue sandbar with a technological dead end."

It was quiet for a moment. "But you could have asked and been answered all of this over text or a call. Why come and see me in person?"

"Well, Admiral," Speyer said, "I've got good news and I've got bad news. I'll start with the bad news first. You're being kicked out of your office and back into space."

The words sent a shock through Sukuda as he sat up in his chair. "For what reason?"

Speyer smiled slightly. "Well, that's where the good news comes in. You been keeping up with the Sagarmatha's development?"

Sukuda nodded slowly. "I have a friend in the San Francisco Shipyards who's a touchstone with the Design Bureau. She's been having something of an existential crisis and a religious experience rolled into one. They're… big."

Speyer nodded. "It's amazing, really. The Sagarmatha has had so many people argue over its name, that the crew christened it 'The Ship with 6 Faces'."

Sukuda chuckled, then frowned slightly. "Wait a minute…"

Speyer's smile widened. "And there's the good news. Starfleet wants captains who have experience in the chair in dangerous situations. And you made it through the Romulan War. Can't think of better credentials for a man under fire than that."

"But the Sagarmatha-class is supposed to be an exploratory vessel," Sukuda said somewhat hesitantly. "A warship captain seems like a rather… ill-fitting thing for something so dedicated to seeing what's out there as peacefully as possible."

"Yeah…" Speyer said, his smile fading. "But there's every chance we'll need to… 'put up our dukes', so to speak. We don't know what's out there. And when the chips are down, we need someone who can be bold and willing to do what's necessary to protect innocent lives and the crew. And if there's anyone the Board can trust to do that… it's you."

It was silent as Sukuda considered the words, considered what he was about to do. He stood from his desk, walking over to pause by the display next to his rather well-stocked bookcase. It was a pitted, scarred, and partially melted piece of metal, the burns only slightly obscuring the words that were still legible, especially the words UES Thunderchild.

"How did you manage to get that?" Speyer asked as he walked to Sukuda's side to regard the somewhat mangled deck plaque of Sukuda's famous command. "I thought it would have been lost after the ship got scuttled at Cheron."

"Well," Sukuda said with a slight smile, "one of my more daring Lieutenants, Leslie, went in with an encounter suit and cut the plaque out of the wall with a phase pistol. Leslie and some other former crew members prettied it up as best they could and presented it to me at the treaty signing at Algeron."

Speyer nodded slowly. "Wow. What a piece of history. Will it be going with you?"

"Going with me?"

"You'll have the quarters for it. Along with most of this bookshelf. You may not be going all the way into the unknown… but I think you'll appreciate it."

Sukuda smiled slightly. "Then I don't see why not."

. . .

Sukuda mused on that moment as he sat on the remarkably filled-out bridge of his command, the UFS Olympus. It was a moment that put him back amongst the stars. There were plenty of times when he simply sat there, trusting in the top-rated, extremely competent crew to take the ship where they needed to go and took in the majesty of space as they wandered the stars past the current borders of the Federation, one of the 3 ships, alongside the Aoraki and the Sagarmatha, on rotation to go out past the still rather hazily defined lines to do so.

It was a move that had somewhat annoyed his wife until she managed to get an assignment as the chief of operations on some Yoyodyne research outpost out near the edge of Federation space at Andor. It made things easy. Or at least easier. The calls weren't dealing with much lag, anyway.

"Captain," his comms officer, an Ensign Hollyfield, said, drawing Sukuda's attention back to the present. "We're picking up what could be a transmission source about a light-year away." he paused as he looked back to his console. "If it's a language, which I think it might be, it's either a code or one we haven't seen before."

"Captain." his first officer, the Andorian Commander Zh'rena, began, drawing his attention to her. It was interesting, to say the least, to have a representative of the Andorian Navy holding such a high visiting commission in Starfleet. Sukuda recognized it for what it was; a herald of truly multi-species crews, whenever that would come. That she'd also applied specifically for the ship he'd captained while being a daughter of one of the scientists he'd seen off of Agaron Prime was, surely, just a coincidence.

"I don't feel like I need to remind you about that time it was a military transmission we stumbled into at Forrosi 7." She continued before pausing and smiling slightly, "Now, I think we're ready whatever way this goes, but…"

"There's never such a thing as too safe." Sukuda chuckled. "Well, it's what we're here for, isn't it?" he looked over at his helmsman. "Helm, take us towards that signal. Nice and non-threatening as we can."

"Aye, sir. Laying in a course." Lieutenant Desi replied. After a moment, she looked back at her captain. "Ready on your mark."

Sukuda nodded. "Sail on."

The stars became a blur as the ship leaped away, breaking past the speed of light with an ease that belied its potential.

. . .

They appeared at the edge of the star system RQ-769. Hanging in the night sky, the ship silently got to work combing the system for its secrets.

Rear Admiral Sukuda stood from his command chair, walking over to the science station that was currently manned by his accompanying officer. "Talk to me, Allison," Sukuda said. "What's the first impression?"

"We're working our way through the system from the outside in." Lieutenant Commander Allison Dreyer replied. "Right now, we're not seeing any overtly obvious signs of life. From what we can tell, we're looking at a binary star system of 7 planetary bodies, with…" her brow arched. "A Class M planet and two Class Ls. Daisy chained right in the middle of the habitable zone."

Sukuda's brows arched. "Well now, that's impressive."

Just as Sukuda finished speaking, Dreyer's console flashed new information that made the bridge turn to look at the station, Dreyer chuckling in amazement. "Captain… I'm reading signs of advanced life on the Class M planet. We're going to need a closer look to ascertain what kind of technology level they're at…"

"Within reason," Zh'rena said somewhat pointedly. "We've gotten close to breaking General Order One more than a few times now. The last thing I want to do is test how serious Command is about it."

Sukuda nodded. "Take us in a little past the orbit of the 7th planet. If there's anything pointed towards us, keep us away from it. I'd hate to be a picture on a corkboard with one too many strings."

Zh'rena arched a brow. "Sir?"

Sukuda smiled slightly. "I'll explain later." he returned to his seat, sitting and watching as they glided into the system, slowing once again to a stop, the planets before them still little more than dots on the horizon.

"Alright, Allison," Sukuda said, "what do our new neighbors look like?"

It was largely silent for a moment save for the humming and beeping of the sensors console. "Looking fairly advanced," Dreyer said. "Obvious signs of fusion power emissions, a fairly comprehensive satellite system, and rudimentary orbital industry. The universal translator's getting to work on translating their language from what is likely voice transmissions."

"Well, then," Sukuda said with a smile. "Looks like we might be getting to know them soon enough when they get around to warp technology. Anything from the other planets?"

"Looks like just small outposts on the two Class L planets, based on emissions signatures from the worlds," Dreyer replied. "Likely scientific or early colonial outposts."

"Anything else you need to find out about our neighbors?" Sukuda asked. "Otherwise, we'll hang back, write things up, and send it through Outpost 23 to San Francisco."

"Maybe some long-range observation of the species to get some baseline biological readings." Commander Zh'rena said somewhat quizzically. "Other than that, I can't think of much of anything else that-"

"I'm reading a warp signature from the Class M!" the ensign in the navigator's chair said, the sensor station lighting up as the screen showed a red diamond denoting the signature beginning to streak away from the primitive shipyard it launched from. "Plotting its course!"

It was a harried moment of chatter across the bridge as the main viewscreen had a glowing crimson line, going right through them, drawn across a windowed frame on the bottom right. "Yellow alert! Desi, get us out of the way of this thing." Sukuda said firmly. "If it collides with us…"

Then, the bridge fell silent as a small, angular ship, like a dark stalactite with two equally angular nacelles hugging tightly to the ship, zipped to a stop. Right in front of them.

Then, Hollyfield looked over at Sukuda as the two ships hung nose to nose. "Well," he said with a slight grimace, "I'm hearing a lot of chatter from the Class M. And I think the warp vessel might be trying to hail us."

Sukuda stood. "Prepare to send a transmission on all possible channels."

"Ready to transmit."

Sukuda took a deep breath. "Unknown vessel, this is Captain Fuku Sukuda of the United Federation Starship Olympus. We are an exploratory vessel for the United Federation of Planets." he paused. "We come in peace, and would be open and willing to open a dialogue with you and your people. You have just achieved a significant milestone in any civilization's advancement, the breakthrough of warp travel. It's a stupendous power, and its potential is limitless. We, and many others in the Federation, largely took our first steps into the stars on our own, or with only token help. But we are in a position to help make your first steps into the endless night one of boundless curiosity and advancement, and not a fraught, perhaps terrifying journey filled with preventable tragedies. At the end of the day, we desire a peaceful relationship with your species. We await your response. Olympus out."

He looked over at Hollyfield and nodded, the transmission cut off as he returned to his chair. "Alright," he said quietly. "What's the response look to be, Hollyfield?"

"Right now," Hollyfield said slowly after a moment, "the ship is silent, and there's a little less chatter on the planet. I think they're trying to compose a response."

Sukuda nodded. "Alright. Let's go ahead and sit tight. No sudden moves."

It was almost silent on the bridge of the ship as they watched and waited on the ship that sat in front of them, waiting for the first words of this newly discovered civilization. Finally, the comms channel chimed, and Hollyfield glanced back at Sukuda. "We're getting a response. The universal translator's still working on the language but we've got something. Opening a channel now."

"On speaker," Sukuda replied.

The comm channel clicked on, and a voice, low and somewhat growly, spoke. "Federation Starship. I am Rak'rikashi, scientist of the people of Korusmi and leader of the vessel Suruku. We are cautious. But we will speak to you."

Sukuda sighed quietly and smiled slightly. "Scientist Rak'rikashi, I am thankful for your willingness to speak with us. Would you and any crew that may be onboard your vessel be willing to come aboard so that we can meet you in person?"

"I am unsure how such a thing can be accomplished, but should it be possible, we look forward to meeting your Federation."

"We'll make it work, Rak'rikashi. Please remain stationary as we pull up beside you. Sukuda out."

The channel was closed, and Sukuda looked around the somewhat shocked, rather amazed bridge. "Did we just make first contact with a new species?" Desi said, his eyes glittering.

"I think we just did, Rajiv," Sukuda replied.

. . .

"As exciting as it is to hear about your contact with the Korusmians," Admiral Speyer said, "you've caused quite a stir here at Headquarters."

Sukuda nodded, recalling the remarkably reptilian/avian species, more than a few comparisons being drawn to Earth's ancient theropod dinosaurs as their chief medical officer, Lieutenant Th'vek, went through with an examination of their physiology. "I imagine so. We've also caused quite a stir on Korusmi too. They find the idea of becoming a part of the Federation rather… exciting. It's only been a few days, and there are already referendums going on to join."

Sukuda paused. "Have you received all of our data yet?"

Speyer nodded. "We just got the biological data Doctor Th'vek sent us. They really do look like some ancient raptor species that became somewhat humanoid and figured out civilization, don't they?"

"They're omnivorous, surprisingly enough," Sukuda remarked. "And while they certainly have a martial bent to them that left Commander Zh'rena impressed, they're… well, excited for the prospect of a peaceful alliance with us."

"Well, we appreciate the enthusiasm, that's for certain," Speyer replied. "But we need to make sure that the Korusmians are able to live up to the standards of the Federation. With what you've said about the scientists that you've spoken to, I'm optimistic, but this is still going to be setting a precedent, right alongside the Catians that the Aoraki have made contact with."

Sukuda nodded. "That it seems we will be. It's going to be interesting as we find more species."

"I'm sure that it's not just because you're not being shot at." Speyer smiled slightly.

Sukuda chuckled. "That's part of it, true. But I'm looking forward to learning the new perspectives, arts, and histories of these people. What the galaxy looks like through their eyes. Or whatever other sensory organs."

"And you'll be quite impressed with their fiction catalogs, I'm sure."

The two shared a quick laugh. "That too."

"Alright," Speyer finally said after a moment, "how long do you think you'll be in-system?"

"For a few more days at least," Sukuda replied. "Then we'll be moving on to other systems that their stellar cartographers have marked out as points of interest."

Speyer nodded slowly. "So it's a win for all parties involved."

He paused, then took a deep breath. "Well, the Jackdaw's in the area and will be out that way to continue the familiarization process and help them along in getting to the standards we set for formal induction into the Federation, along with keeping an eye on the area until we get an ambassador out there to sign treaties. Maybe you'll get to wave to them on your way out."

"Maybe so." Sukuda grinned slightly. "Good luck with the paperwork."

"Thanks," Speyer replied somewhat wearily. "Headquarters out."

With that, the call terminated, and Sukuda stood in his personal quarters, walking over to a window to see the planet of Korusmi, glittering green and blue, as they waited in orbit above it. He glanced for a moment over at the warped deck plaque of the Thunderchild, pondering the remarkable change he'd made. And the remarkable changes he, and the rest of the crew, might still make.

Edit: Reinstating Rear Admiral Sukuda's rank, as I've been reminded that yes, ranks higher than Captain can take the main chair of a starship.

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Chapter 4: Second Contact Under Clouds of War

Star U-678B, Serina B, 4 Lightyears from Kzinti Border, August 2192

Captain Sukuda of the UFS Olympus regarded the brilliant blue and green world, sparking with silver and brilliant lights, and wished that he were here under better circumstances. The Oceanis Triumvirate, at any other time, would have been fascinating to sit down and have a long conversation with.

The Triumvirate, somewhat like the Xindi further north, were a conglomerate nation, composed of three species that had evolved together on the planet, two of them completely aquatic. Though, they claimed, this wasn't their homeworld, but one that they'd been transplanted to for mysterious reasons. Their mastery of ecology, and the terraforming technology it produced, could potentially make dozens, hundreds of worlds that much more habitable.

It was why he was here with a task force. Though it had been decades at this point, the specter of war loomed over the Federation, wearing a feline mask this time. Olympus, alongside the Mako and the Hammerhead, were here to help set up a defensive perimeter around the planet, should the Kzinti ever decide to come knocking. Triumvirate space-faring industry was a boon here, Triumvirate tenders moving the frankly rather massive satellites that Olympus, along with an engineering vessel, the Archimedes, had brought into their designated stations.

Fuku sat on the bridge watching the final few satellites be gently pushed into place, looking at the ships that did so. These ones were small, but they shared the sleek lines and curves, an almost biological grace, of the rest of the Triumvirate's nascent fleet. The nacelles on their warp-capable patrol boats were elongated teardrops, tapering toward the endpoint…

He chuckled softly. Mosi would have given him some small, playful grief, even as she would have wanted to get a closer look at the nacelles in question, to see if their differences were only skin deep.

"Captain? Is there something funny?"

Commander Zh'rena's question brought Sukuda out of his reverie as he looked up at his XO. "Just catching myself thinking about nacelles again, Thashin."

Zh'rena shrugged. "Well, I'm sure Mrs. Sukuda would rather be thinking about that."

Sukuda nodded. Mosi, for her wartime experience, hadn't been drafted back into Starfleet, thank god. She had, however, been pinned as a 'civilian strategic advisor', with the blessing of Yoyodyne. It had left her… strung out. If there wasn't a war going on, he'd have put in for some leave to go to Andor.

"Captain," Lieutenant Alex Hollyfield said from the comms station, "I'm getting a signal from a Triumvirate patrol boat."

"Put it on screen," Sukuda replied, standing and walking towards the forward viewport.

The view of the stars disappeared, replaced by an interior that was filled with water as a whale-like face regarded him. "Captain Sukuda," the being in front of him said, its voice somewhat ethereal as it passed through their translator matrix into the Olympus's, "this is Ship-Guide Luruuna of the Hirimiri. We're reading an unknown force coming out of warp at the edge of the system. One large vessel, about your size, along with three somewhat smaller vessels."

"Damn," Sukuda said quietly. "Stay clear and return home. It's probably the Kzinti. We'll deal with them. Olympus out."

"Good luck," Luruuna replied before the comm-screen flickered out.

"Red alert!" Sukuda said as he returned to his chair, the alarms beginning to blare. "Hollyfield, signal the Mako and the Hammerhead, tell them to form up on our flanks, then send a message asking when the defense system is going to be fully online."

"Yes, sir," Hollyfield replied as he got to work.

"Are we planning on going out and intercepting them, sir?" Zh'rena asked.

"We're the most heavily armed and shielded ships in the system," Sukuda said as he sat down. "What other choice do we have?"

The Olympus, under Lieutenant Desi's now expert guidance, pulled away from the sight of the now hurrying tenders with their satellite, angling towards the sensor locks that now showed up on long-range scanners. Mako and Hammerhead were not far behind as they began to make their way towards the newly arrived force.

"Captain," Hollyfield said, "Triumvirate Command and Archimedes both confirm it'll be about 15 minutes before the defense system is fully online."

Sukuda nodded. "Then we just need to hold out for that long. Helm, put us at station keeping at about 5 minutes away from the defense grid at full impulse. Once you get confirmation that it's online, signal the task group to turn and burn towards the grid."

"Aye, sir," Desi replied.

"Sensors confirm one Kzinti battlecruiser and three frigates, Captain." the ensign at navigation said. "Also picking up several runabout launches."

"Alright," Sukuda replied. "Put any reserve power we have towards weapons and shields. Those overloaded disruptors are going to be hell otherwise. We'll focus on taking down the frigates first, isolate the battle-cruiser. Time to contact?"

"5 minutes, sir." Navigation replied.

Sukuda took a deep breath as he settled in his seat and steeled himself. Battle again, after all these years. But at least now he didn't have to worry about cloaked surprises.

Cold comfort as he watched the darkness before him. Then, well-trained eyes picked out the artificial stars that were their enemies. "2 minutes to contact." Navigation replied.

"Tactical, prepare long-range torpedo fire. Begin by focusing on the battleship, throw is sensors for a loop for a few moments while we focus fire on the lead frigate, and pick off runabouts where possible." Sukuda continued to watch, no longer fully daring to break the silence that had settled over the crew.

"Fire!"

Several torpedoes flashed out towards the now distinct ships, the torpedoes slamming into the large, spear-like heavy cruiser, the frigates beginning to break off to try and surround the Olympus.

"Tell Mako and Hammerhead to pick a frigate and bring it down! We'll keep the others off their backs." Sukuda said, watching as the Selachiis sprang into action, picking the left-most vessel and bearing down on it with relentless phaser fire. The frigate, in defiance of all reason, pulled one of the tightest turns he'd ever seen a ship this size make. He could swear he saw the stress fractures appearing on the hull, even as several runabouts popped from their sustained phaser fire.

The others tried to come to the aid of their compatriot, but the Olympus battered them with its own weapons, the cruiser trying to breach their shields and the shields of the frigates to little avail at the moment as its targets began to spread out. After several long, ship-shaking moments, the first frigate went up in a brilliant explosion, another frigate that had been worn down by the Olympus's guns and targeted next by the Selachiis going up shortly after.

Finally, however, the cruiser's guns broke through Olympus's shields, hammering into the hull and threatening to send the crew to the floor. "Damage report!" Sukuda called out.

"Hull breaches in Decks 2 and 3, sections 5 through 8. Sealing off the sections now!" Lieutenant Dreyer replied. "Shields are coming back online, but they only brushed us."

"Tell the Selachiis they're on their own for the moment," Sukuda said firmly. "Focus all fire on the cruiser!"

As the Olympus turned away from the fight that the frigates engaged in, trying to keep the minimum distance away from the almost insanely aggressive Kzinti frigate, their guns laid into the heavy cruiser as they began their slow, measured maneuvering, lances of orange light and flashed of photon torpedoes raking across the surface of the Kzinti cruiser as they fired in return. The ship's shields were strong however, and still more overpowered disruptor shots managed to pierce through, one shot shattering the ventral port nacelle's Bussard collector, the nacelle itself cascading into a complete quench and nearly taking its sister dorsal nacelle with it.

"Damn." Sukuda gritted out as he climbed back into his seat. "Status on the frigates!"

"They just sent the enemy frigate up in flames," Zh'rena replied. "They're turning about to help us."

"Good," Sukuda replied. "We should be able to wear them down through weight of numbers."

"Sir!" Hollyfield said. "Triumvirate Command just informed us they've rushed activation of the defense grid section closest to us!"

"Excellent," Sukuda said. That section was made up of about 10, though hastily designed, powerful phaser and torpedo satellites. "Divert all shield power to the aft shields and turn us about. Let them think they've got us on the run. Inform the Mako and Hammerhead and tell them to do the same."

"Sending messages now," Hollyfield said as the ship slowly turned about, making its best course towards the defense grid while throwing what fire it could behind it.

'No Thunderchild today.' Sukuda thought with a slight, grim smile, thoughts turning back to the sight of his ship and the remains of its nacelle drifting dead in space at Cheron. He had to thank whoever thought of four nacelles for this ship instead of the usual two. It might have just saved their lives.

"2 minutes until we're in range…" Desi replied before a solid hit near their bridge sent sparks flying, EPS conduits overloading and sealing off as screens flickered.

"Hold on!" Sukuda said, willing the ships to get to that finish line no one could see, but all could feel in their gut.

Then, they were through. "Scatter and give the turrets a clear shot!" Sukuda said, almost feeling the Olympus dive as he gave his command. The view in front of them came to life with an armament that would have outclassed even all of the Thunderchild-class ships put together, a forest of phaser fire interspersed by constellations of photon torpedoes that tore the Kzinti ship apart in a matter of minutes.

And like that, the skirmish was over. Sukuda allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. "Casualties?" he asked the dreaded question.

Hollyfield listened attentively at his station. "10 dead, 45 wounded," he said, the words dark and heavy.

Sukuda sighed quietly. "Get a list together. I'll need to inform their families."

. . .

"You showed remarkable bravery yesterday, Rear Admiral." The Landstrider leader of the Triumvirate, an almost penguin-like being that rose to his chest in height, remarked as he sipped from a straw that accommodated his beak. "And I mourn with you for the loss of your comrades."

"Thank you, Representative Kokorina," Sukuda replied. He gazed out at the beatific world that they now stood on. "I think they would have been proud to give their lives preserving a world like this one."

"We will honor their sacrifice in our own ways," Kokorina replied. After a moment, the avian looked up at Sukuda. "It is a shame to see you go. I would have liked to introduce you to some of our underwater cities, even if you needed the aid of technology. The coral growths this time of year are beautiful here."

"Perhaps another time," Sukuda said. "For now, we need to go and do what we did here for the Birrin people a few lightyears over. They're another Federation protectorate that reached out to us after discovering warp travel and stumbling upon one of our science vessels."

"I wish the best for them," Kokorina replied. "And I hope, in time, to join your Federation, and share the wonders that we've managed to find ourselves."

"As do I," Sukuda replied. "And hopefully, that can be a time of peace when you do."

A/N: If you recognize the references to the speculative evolution works that I've mentioned (and put a focus on) here, then caps off to you. I'd highly recommend finding the series on Serina and the Birrin. They are... fascinating. *Slight brow raise*

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Humble Beginnings

UFS Lovelace, 2233

There was always something about your first command. At least, that's what Mizu Sukuda had heard from her friends as they'd gotten their first command as XOs and captains. Most of them had gone on to crew rather venerable ships, all told. One of her old classmates had even gone on to take the XO's seat on her father's old command, the Olympus.

But, there was also something to be said of being the daughter of someone on the Admiralty Board. They couldn't afford to pick and choose favorites, or even give the appearance of doing so. So, while it certainly had its benefits, being Fuku Sukuda's daughter certainly had its downsides when it came to Starfleet.

Which was why Commander Sukuda looked out the window at the oddly-shaped, still somewhat-strangely colored vessel that had been one of the newer ones off the docks; an Archer-class light cruiser Lovelace.

It didn't hold the sleek lines of the few, vaunted Radiant-class postings, nor the solidness and reliability of the Newton-classes. But there was some small charm to its bulbous 'head', ski-like nacelles, and the rather small engineering hull that would be eclipsed by one of the small cargo pods it would carry. It wasn't beautiful… but it could be cute.

'And damn it all, it's my ship,' she mused as she considered the crew docket on her padd. 'I might as well be proud of it.'

It was a decent crew, most not anywhere above Lieutenant. Hell, her XO, an Ashley Kennedy, was a Lieutenant Commander. But she had no doubt that the crew would be capable, even if they found the missions somewhat boring.

'It's a way to settle into ship-board life, if nothing else,' she thought as the shuttle she was on, one of a complement of 20 and called Bombe, touched down in the 3rd of 5 hangar bays. As she stepped out, she was greeted by the sound of the bosun's pipes, a greeting party with Lieutenant Commander Kennedy, blonde-haired, fair-skinned, and regarding her intently with amber eyes, came to attention.

As Mizu came to a stop in front of Kennedy, she noted the presence of two distinctly non-humanoid crew members serving alongside the usual human complement. One was a Birrin, clothed in the red of operations and a patterning of skin that reminded her of what her history books called penguins. The other was a Korusmian, a woman if the drab plumage that framed her rept-avian head and peeked out from the science blue of her uniform's sleeves was any indication, who regarded her intently. One alien species on a crew was already an interesting sight to see, but two, and clearly non-humanoid in their build, was remarkable.

"Captain," Kennedy said, drawing Mizu's attention back to her, "welcome to the Lovelace. The ship is getting ready to depart with a load of station parts to Korusmi to complete its orbital presence. We're just about ready to get underway."

Mizu nodded. "Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. I won't keep us waiting any longer than we need to."

As the party was dismissed, most going their separate ways, she fully turned her attention to the Korusmian, nodding slightly. "Lieutenant Suk'nurushni," she said, silently hoping she'd managed to get the pronunciation correctly. "I'm glad we have a Korusmian on-board to help smooth things along for this mission. Are you here on commission from the Korusmian military?"

Suk'nurushni shook her head. "I am a part of Starfleet proper," she replied, the universal translator rendering her voice as a deep, somewhat rumbling alto. "Myself, along with Lieutenant Dimillin of the Birrin, are among the first class of Starfleet Academy personnel that has more than one or two non-humans among its ranks."

"How many were there?" Mizu asked as Kennedy began to take her on a tour of the ship, the others following behind.

"There were 6 of us," Dimillin replied with a rather melodic, almost shimmering voice. "Myself and Nuru, a Catian, a Vulcan, and two Andorians. We continue to commiserate as best we can."

"I see," Mizu said. "Well, I'm glad to see the frontier is expanding for you and for Starfleet in terms of its membership. With being a chief engineer and chief science officer, even on a ship such as this, I imagine you have some prestige on your homeworlds."

"We are… minor celebrities, yes," Suk'nurushni replied. "Depending on the length of our stay, you and the rest of the crew may be exposed to what one could call… fans."

With that, the tour of the ship went as well as one might expect. As they walked, however, Mizu noticed something. The atmosphere of this ship was… different from those that she'd served on.

Almost all Starfleet vessels were, by the nature of their insulation against the void and their long treks throughout Federation space and beyond, possessed of a crew that was familiar with each other, capable of working together and understanding the needs of the mission and the crew as a whole. Such was necessary to keep such complicated ships functioning.

But the feeling of this ship's crew, the way they interacted with each other, the way they regarded her beyond just as their new commanding officer… she'd inherited a crew that was more tight-knit than most.

She'd heard that such was the case from her father. Seeing it in action, however, almost but not quite skirting the edge of regulations regarding fraternization, still managed to shock her somewhat. She wasn't just a new commanding officer that they would need to get a gauge on. She was a stranger entering an extant community, a little world of its own.

'Well,' Mizu thought as, with Dimillin and Suk'nurushni having parted ways at their stations for the moment, she stepped onto the highest deck of the ship, the bridge arrayed before her, 'I need to integrate myself, then. If it can keep this ship running as happily as Commander Isley mentioned in his message to me.'

As she put the bridge officers at ease, she made her way to the captain's chair, Kennedy taking her place alongside her as she directed the ship to begin moving towards their waiting cargo pod.

"No opening speech, ma'am?" Kennedy asked.

"I want us underway, business as usual, before I make any ship-wide broadcast," Mizu replied. "Their routine has already been disrupted somewhat by my arrival, so I want to give them a chance to settle back in before I make any ripples."

"That's… highly unusual, ma'am," Kennedy replied.

"I get the feeling this isn't your regular sort of posting," Mizu replied. "How long have you been here?"

"About a year, ma'am," Kennedy replied. "I replaced the previous XO after he went on paternity leave with his family. It's taken some time, but I think the crew's comfortable with me now."

"And to achieve that," Mizu said, "I think I'll need to follow your lead. Think you can show me the ropes?"

"I thought Sukudas were supposed to be quite able to adjust to new tactical situations on their own, Captain," Kennedy said with a slight smile.

Mizu returned her smile. "Maybe so. But I think I'll need your family's good luck for that to be the case."

Kennedy chuckled softly. "If only mom had heard you saying that…"

Mizu shrugged slightly as she looked over at her comms officer, the rumble of the docking clamps connecting to the cargo pod heard even here. "Ensign Seo-yeong, shipwide channel, please."

As the ensign completed his task, Mizu let the bosun's pipes whistle pass on for a moment before speaking. "This is your new captain. I've heard nothing but praise from your previous captain, Mr. Isley. He asked me in his message to send over his regards to, in his words, 'as fine a group of wrench-pullers as any person could ask for'. That alone speaks volumes of his trust, and his comfort, in working with this crew."

"I am well aware that I am an unknown," she continued, "as any new crewmember can be. As well, I am a stranger to most, though I'm sure you've likely heard of my family name. I have no intention to lord such a thing over you, even if I had the power to do so. As humble as these ships are compared to many other postings, this ship and its sisters play a vital part. It is an honor to serve with all of you, and I look forward to getting to know you as we do what needs to be done to build the Federation piece by piece."

With that, she signaled for the link to be cut, looking at Kennedy and seeing a somewhat bemused expression.

"That's rather… magnanimous, ma'am," Kennedy said. "We aren't exactly the Sagarmatha."

"Well, if there's anything my time spent growing up traveling the Federation has taught me," Mizu replied, "it's that you don't make friendly neighbors by being lordly."

"Helm," she said as they reached their departure, a Newton-class called the Faraday their escort. "Take it away, maximum cruise."

The stars stretched into lines zipping past them, and Mizu settled into her chair with a quiet sigh. 2 months to Korusmi. Enough time to be friendly, at the very least.

. . .

2 Months Later

The Pharos-type station, or at least its skeleton, loomed large in the viewport of the Lovelace. She was accompanied by two other Archers, the Archer herself and the Benz. Their shuttles, accompanied by swarms of worker bees, made a cloud around the superstructure, like carrion flies working in reverse.

Mizu wasn't on the bridge to watch the continuing construction. The whole process would take several months, anyway, and she was sure that the Faraday, who had remained with them as a patrol guard, would find the same waiting period boring as well. But there were benefits to being on an Archer for that long.

Tonight, as had been established when the Lovelace had arrived, was game night.

Crewmembers of all three ships, via separated comms channels, had set up digital games stations that could relay info across all three ships. This week's game night had taken the form of a collection of 'campaigns', as it were, of an old role-playing game system from Earth, nearly lost in the fires of the Third World War.

Mizu was arbitrating, or Game Mastering, a collection of 6 that included, of all things, the Benz' executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Sinclair. It was an interesting thing, this role-playing game. It reminded her of so many elements of childhood make-believe, of the blending of human and alien stories and mythologies that she'd bent to her seemingly boundless imagination. But here, there was structure, an order to things, that she was sure the engineering-minded among her crew found quite comforting, even when the dice used to arbitrate luck turned against them. That so many among her crew and many others she'd interacted with in this way were artificers was only a happy coincidence, she was sure.

As she narrated a scene of an adventuring party at rest, she found herself rudely interrupted by the howl of the red alert. 'Damn,' she thought as her group excused themselves and she quickly made her way to the nearest turbolift. 'What am I missing?'

She pulled out her communicator, activating it with a chirp. "Status report," she said into her feed to the bridge.

"We're reading increased tachyon particle emissions at the edge of the system," Suk'nurushni replied. "The Faraday is going to investigate, but whatever is emitting tachyons at such a rate will meet the Faraday only 15 minutes away from us at maximum impulse."

The explanation made her blood run cold. 'Cloaked raiders.' Who they were, how they had made it so deeply into Federation space, what their goals were, all would have to wait until they knew more. Until then, all they could do was get ready.

Mizu emerged onto the bridge, barely acknowledging the call of the crewmember announcing her arrival as Ashley stood from the captain's chair.

"What are our options?" Mizu said.

"Right now, the best option seems to be running, ma'am," Ashley replied. "Whatever's coming for us, we can bet that we likely won't best them."

"Maybe so," Mizu said. "But that leaves the planet open to them. As well as the station. We could be set back months if they do enough damage. Comms, get Captains Huxley and Huertas on channel."

Park Seo-yeong did his duty quickly, and the voices of the two captains were not quiet for very long.

"Captain Sukuda," Captain Fernando Huxley said, "I imagine you have some sort of plan."

"I'd like to have something," Mizu replied, "seeing as we don't have a defense grid built to help us out just yet."

"We aren't exactly warships," Eliza Huertas said archly. "What can we do other than try and pile on whatever ships get past the Faraday?"

Mizu was silent for a moment. "These are likely just raiders," she said. "They wouldn't advance this deep and this silently unless they were looking for an easy payoff."

"We're just carrying parts for the Pharos," Huxley replied. "The only thing of any value would have to be the power plant modules that we haven't installed in the station yet."

"If the raiders are crafty enough, that'd be a payday enough for them," Huerta replied.

"Sir," Seo-yeong said, "the Faraday's engaged the raiders. The data on the four vessels they're relaying is roughly matching old Klingon warbirds. They're likely newer designs, but the resemblance remains."

"Klingons?" Mizu said. "We haven't picked a fight with them, and they haven't made any overt moves. Why strike at us now?"

"Questions for the diplomats," Huxley replied. "Right now, we just need to make sure we survive. How do we do that?"

Mizu considered the question silently as she looked out the main viewscreen, taking in the space around her. And the cargo pods that lay empty surrounding the station.

Then, she got an Idea. "Why don't we give them something they can't pass up?"

"What do you mean?" Huerta asked.

"How quickly could we pack a brace of torpedoes into a cargo pod?" she asked. "We'll need to get started now, because the work around it will likely draw the raiders in."

"And if we protect them…" Huxley said slowly. "We make it seem like there's something precious we have to give up to stay alive."

"What are you doing here, and not in the chair of a Kea?" Huerta asked with a chuckle.

"My job, Eliza," Mizu said with a slight smile. "My people will get to work on a way to mimic the sensor output of one of the bigger cores we have here. As long as we have a dozen or so torpedoes taken from each of our magazines, that should destroy anything that comes our way."

"Good luck," Huxley replied. "We'll get to work."

With that, the comm channel closed, and Ashley looked at Mizu. "I've gotta say," she said somewhat hesitantly, "you're kind of asking for a miracle, ma'am."

"It's what we joined Starfleet to do," Mizu replied. "And if there's any crew that can do it, it's the Lovelace's."

. . .

The next 15 minutes were a frenzy of activity as the chosen cargo pod became an unwilling improvised explosive, Mizu keeping tabs on the Faraday's battle with the Klingon raiders. It was a battle that, as well armed and nimble as she was, she was losing. The ship had destroyed one of the birds of prey, and crippled another decisively. But, at long last, she had to pull back to keep herself from being torn apart, letting two birds of prey, one unscathed, the other only partially damaged, carve their way towards the waiting station and ships.

The clock was now ticking, and Mizu kept it in mind as she watched the final, hurried efforts of those daring engineers within the cargo pod, now a safe distance away from the station, who were wiring the signal, built into a torpedo hull as a power source and a transmitter, that would lure the Klingon raiders in.

"How are Aomea and Dillons holding up, Nuru?" she said, not quite capable of keeping the edge of concern from her voice.

"They should be finished soon," Suk'nurushni replied. "Creating the signal was always going to be the difficult part, and Dimillin's people handled it exceptionally well."

Mizu remained silent as she watched the screen, the cloud of workers clearing up as shuttles returned to their bays. "Captain," the voice of the Junior Grade Lieutenant that manned their transporter room, "I have Aomea and Dillons."

"The signal is transmitting," Suk'nurushni said. "The battlespace is now yours."

"For all that's worth in these," Mizu said, mostly to herself. "Seo-yeong, signal the Archer and the Benz and have them form up with us around the cargo pod, and get ready for long range fires. The moment they get within a kilometer, turn and burn away from the cargo pod. Let them think they've won."

"Acknowledged," Park replied, relaying the message as the Lovelace moved into position, making up the top vertice of a triangle pointed out at the raiders.

And, for a moment, Mizu thought about the story that her dad had told her of the battle of Agaron Prime all those years ago. The waiting he'd done for the Romulans. That she was doing now.

Then, a brief alarm. "Raiders are in range," Ashley said.

"Fire."

The space above Korusmi flashed with phasers and photon torpedoes, phasers scanning the space the tachyon emissions were coming from as photon torpedoes chased the brief hits that were made. All too often, the photon torpedoes just sailed into the night, detonating on nothing.

As the tachyon emissions closed past 50 kilometers, they slowly faded out in time with the Klingon birds of prey revealing themselves, harsh, angular things that were painted in a dull gunmetal gray, diving towards them with harsh green disruptor cannon shots and deep red torpedoes striking out. But where the phasers and photon torpedoes only scored glancing hits, the disruptors were far more precise. And quite deadly.

Mizu and the rest of the bridge crew rocked in their places as one of the birds of prey scored another hit on her shields, the blow causing them to flicker for a moment.

"Shields still holding at 68.7% capacity," Suk'nurushni said as calmly as she could. "Raiders are at 35 kilometers."

"Almost…" Mizu said quietly. They just needed to get a little closer…

Then, a tone from the science station as another hit rocked the ship a little harder. "The raiders have passed the point of no return."

"All ships, break and disengage!" Mizu said. "Helm, come about, full impulse."

Mizu had to grip her chair a little tighter as the ship moved as fast as it could, a rear view coming up on the monitor as they fled. The raiders, for their part, slowed down, seemingly content to let the ships they'd had their little duel with escape as they kept their noses firmly pointed at the cargo pod that had seemingly been left out of desperation.

'Come on…' Mizu thought, trying to will the ships to continue creeping closer. 'Take the bait…'

Closer and closer the birds of prey drew to the cargo pod. Mizu glanced up at Ashley as the seemingly agonizing process took place. "Finger on the button, Ashley," she said quietly. "Just in case."

The last words came at a murmur as Mizu considered the hastily designed and constructed proximity system the crews of engineers had brainstormed and added to the torpedo array at the last moment. There was a manual detonation switch just in case, but-

There was a brilliant flash of white light, the automatic filters on the viewscreen only doing so much as all reflexively covered their eyes. As the flash faded, those eyes slowly were allowed to see the spinning debris field, metal cooling rapidly appearing almost like twinkling stars.

With that, Mizu, and the rest of the crews she was sure, allowed herself a gentle sigh of relief. "Well," she said quietly, "we're nothing if not proficient in demolition as well."

. . .

5 Weeks Later

There were many more Starfleet ships in system than there were intended to be. Not the least of these ships was the UFS Denali, which had carried a member of the Admiralty Board to oversee the ongoing investigation and commend the crews for their actions in the battle.

That it happened to be Admiral Sukuda, who should have been on a diplomatic tour half a Federation away, simply came down to him being already out there, she'd been assured.

Even still, it made hugging him in her private quarters no less sweet for how long they'd been separated. She could swear there was more salt than pepper in the 85-year-old man's hair at this point, and there were a few more lines in his face that creased with his smile as they sat and had drinks, but he still possessed the same quiet energy that had kept her in check as a child whenever he was able to see her and her mother.

"Sakura bloom," he said after a moment appreciating the company, "we've got to keep meeting like this to a minimum. At least while you're in a ship like this."

Mizu sighed quietly and smiled, chuckling softly. "She held together well, Dad. The engineers at Utopia Planitia should be proud of themselves."

"I'll pass on my regards, then," Fuku replied. "But there's something else to discuss, now that we've gotten past the fact that you've used a cargo pod in a remarkably unorthodox manner."

Mizu shrugged slightly. "I can only thank the crew here on the ship for teaching me how to effectively think outside the box."

"I've learned that if you put enough engineers in a room, you'll experience miracles, sooner or later. Your mother can attest to that," Fuku said with a slight shake of his head.

The smile on his face faded. "No, what I have to say isn't allowed to leave this room just yet. And it's the reason for your crash engineering project."

"The Klingons."

Fuku nodded. "The one ship that managed to survive mostly intact is the largest raider we've ever seen in Federation space. The tacticians on the Denali are already designating it the D2, and the 80 Klingon warriors onboard made us pay for every inch of it. It looks like an older ship that's gone through quite a lot of updates and modernizations; radio-carbon dating's placing some of the main hull components as early as the 2160s."

"But the fact still stands," he continued, "that this is the furthest that Klingon raiders have penetrated thus far, and with the heaviest tonnage in ships we seen thus far."

Mizu's blood ran cold. "So the rumors of border raids are true, then."

Fuku nodded. "It's part of why you're building this station. Everyone back at San Francisco is gearing up for something bad. Maybe even war. The sort of war, if reports on Klingon naval strength and attitude are correct, that'll stand next to the Romulan War in its bloodiness."

Mizu took a deep breath, then nodded. "I can hope we'll be ready for it, if nothing else," she said quietly.

"Of that much you can be assured," Fuku said as he stood. "The Warp 8 program's completed testing, and they're just waiting on a ship to put it on. We'll get there. I promise."

Fuku made his way to the door, pausing at it before it opened. "And," he said as he looked back, "with you performance here, I wouldn't expect you to stay for long on a ship like this, Captain. Good evening to you."

"Good evening, Admiral," Mizu replied, and she watched as Admiral Sukuda exited her quarters.

The idea of moving up in the world, of commanding a ship meant for greater things than just engineering projects and hauling, was always an exciting prospect. Mizu couldn't deny the little thrill that ran through her.

But she also couldn't deny the quiet, aching sadness of the thought of leaving these people, this ship, behind.

'Well,' Mizu thought, 'you never forget your first command.'

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Chapter 6: Blades Against the Dark

Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, 2236

It took quite a lot for the Admiralty Board to come together for a single person. But, as Admiral Uchtdorf mused as he adjusted his newly issued uniform (how many was this one now? Four? Five? He couldn't wait for Starfleet's tailors to make up their damn minds), the one person in question had raised quite some hell over the latest starship design. He was lodging what Bertram dearly hoped to be his last, most stringent protest today.

His uniform thus in order (or so he hoped with this one), he made his way to the hearing chamber, finding himself joined by the now venerable Admiral Speyer.

"Afternoon, Bert," Speyer said. "Ready to put this to bed?"

Bertram sighed as he rolled his eyes. "I hope we do. Trying to talk some sort of sense into the man has only seemed to embolden his claims. It's like trying to put out a fire with kerosene."

"When he couches his complaints like he does," Speyer said, "it's no wonder he has as many supporters as he does."

"He is also young for his position," another voice said, the men looking over to see Admiral T'Irroth join their walk. "His age, alongside his remarkable amount of commendations, lends credence to his position, and makes him popular amongst his peers."

"Popular or not," Bertram said, "we've had enough trouble getting the project through because of him. The lieutenant that leaked the torpedo loadout not only cost Starfleet Intelligence a lot of sleep, but we had to spend a week putting out brushfires started by junior idealists."

With that, they entered the hearing chamber. In total, 16 Admirals sat at a long table, its long edge facing another door and a singular chair in which the man of the hour would sit.

A few moments later, the door opened, allowing a tall, rather thin man with a sharp face, rosy complexion, and green eyes framed by a mane of fiery hair, to walk in and take his seat.

"Commander Hennefer," Speyer said. "Far be it from me to tell any man who's saved as many lives as you have that you've been a naughty boy, but your continued actions, and the actions of those inspired by you, are placing the Federation in potentially critical danger."

Commander Alfred Hennefer, XO of the UFS Resplendent for the last 4 years, regarded the Board with a steadfast gaze. "The United Federation is already in peril," he said firmly. "Its very ideals are under attack, and have been since the conception of the Constitution Project. Are we not a polity of peace, of understanding and cooperation? Can we not resolve the tensions we have with the Klingons without standing at the precipice of potential imperial intentions?"

The room was silent for a moment. "We stand at a crossroads," Hennefer continued. "Either we find a way to show that there is no need for further conflict with the Klingons and make our peace with them, or we begin to make our way down the road of base imperialism. And this ship, your Constitution, will lead the way, one way or another."

"Commander," T'Irroth said, "you seem to consistently underestimate the martial nature of Klingon culture. They are only interested in shows of strength and glory. Even without a clear picture of their culture, their raiding parties are evidence enough of this fact."

"And we have the chance to show them there are other ways to have strength!" Hennefer said sternly. "We can show them how we stand together, how we've left behind needing to… to thump our chests at every stranger we meet and instead extend them a hand to lift both of us up further than we could ever go alone."

The members of the Board glanced at each other, then most eyes landed on one of two members of the board. One was Admiral Sukuda. The other was Admiral Shevchuk.

"Alfred," Taisa said gently, "do you have family in Nova Brasilia?"

Alfred blinked at the question. "No, I don't," he said.

"Did you have family who served in the Romulan War?"

Alfred shook his head. "No, ma'am. The closest my family ever got to the war was a grandfather serving on one of the Zheng Hes."

Taisa sighed quietly. "You're an idealist. I can't help but admire that. You champion the best parts of the Federation. We always need people like that, or the whole damn thing will fall apart because no one cares."

Taisa's mouth drew into a grimace. "But sometimes, we have to be willing to defend ourselves, and our ideals. We would never have gotten this far if we weren't willing to look the people sizing us up in the eye and throw a punch if needed. The Romulans learned that lesson the hard way. Is it imperialism to want to defend the Federation?"

Alfred's jaw clenched. "No. But it's always been the first step towards a variety of dark paths. An enemy at the gates that we must focus our attention on at the cost of freedoms, dignities. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first. But it never takes as long as anyone thinks it does."

The room fell silent, and Taisa… smiled slightly. "Then I think you're the perfect man for the job."

Alfred's eyes went wide. "What?"

"I must remind you, Admiral," T'Irroth said, "your proposition seems highly illogical."

"Does it?" Admiral Sukuda said. "The best warrior is the one who knows when to put away his ax and extend his hand in peace, after all."

"Wait a a minute," Alfred said, beginning to stand from his chair. "You can't possibly be telling me…"

"We are, Captain," Taisa said pointedly. "You make for the perfect balance for any war dogs that might end up as part of the initial contingent of the Excalibur-class. You understand the consequences of what might happen, likely far more than anyone besides Admiral Sukuda here. And your service thus far has been exemplary, with no small amount of action on the borders against pirates. I see no reason not to trust you with one of these vessels."

She paused almost dramatically. "If you'll accept it, of course. You want to show the rest of the Federation what the best of us looks like in that chair? You've got the perfect opportunity right here."

Alfred was silent for long moments, clearly at war with himself, before he slowly nodded. "Very well," he said, pausing again. "Thank you, Admiral. I'm thankful for your trust in me."

"And I'm sure that you'll prove that trust many times over," Taisa said. "You're dismissed, Alfred. Your orders will be processed once the ship we've chosen for you is completed. Until then, rest easy. You've got some time before the first vessel gets out from the slip."

Alfred came to attention. "Again, thank you," he said, almost sounding genuine before he turned to exit the room, the Admiralty Board remaining where it was as they found themselves alone.

"I still can't see why you'd put a pacifist in charge of a warship, Taisa," Admiral Kuhlohr, a stout Tellarite, said with narrowed eyes aimed directly at his subject. "He seems like he'd rather make more overtures to the Xindi than actually decide to power up his phasers and photon torpedoes."

"An idealist, not a pacifist," Taisa replied. "There's a definite difference, and Hennefer there falls into the former. I've gone and done the legwork beyond simply looking at his dossier and his… recent annoyances. The people he's served with know he's a man willing to defend what he cares for. His friends, their friends, the Federation… they all mean something to him. He loves deeply, and without pretension."

Taisa sighed heavily. "But what he's been missing is a dose of reality. Of what it really means to defend what you love when life and death are what's on the line. And I hate that this is how he gets it."

. . .

Somewhere in Federation Space, 2242

The Klingons were getting desperate. Not that they'd likely show it, based on what Commander Xavier had seen of them, but with how things were going, there were signs on the strategic level.

The XO of the UFS Curtana considered the readout on his screen with intent brown eyes set in a square-jawed, terra-cotta colored face framed by a simple bun of jet-black hair. The latest intel was that a battle wing of D6s and D7s had broken through the perimeters and was blazing a path towards Axanar, a crossroads that served as a vital refueling point for going just about anywhere outside of the Sol Sector of the Federation. If Axanar was subdued, then the seat of Federation power would be in danger, all manner of founding worlds vulnerable to Klingon attack.

Which was why Curtana, along with the UFS Tizona, Caldbolg, and Joyeuse, followed behind by six Newton-class ships running at full tilt, was on their way to secure the system.

"Captain," the helmsman of the ship, one Lieutenant Cortez, called out. "5 minutes until we reach Axanar."

"Very good, Cortez," Captain Hennefer said. "Yellow Alert, shields at the ready."

As the alarm for Yellow Alert went up, Xavier rose from his station and made his way over to the captain's chair. He still hadn't quite shaken that odd feeling about the captain since they'd met. Even with the action over Adular VI, there seemed to be some… reservation in the man about the whole war.

"Xavier," Hennefer said, looking up to the man in question. "Any news on Axanar?"

"Nothing so far," Xavier replied. "Not even the usual traffic. That worries me. There's a complement of Keas and Saladins on station, to say nothing of the Seleya and the Denali that should have sent us some sort of distress call if something was wrong. The fact that all I've heard is static…"

Hennefer grimaced. "Then it looks like we might be warping into an active battle. Red Alert! All hands to battle stations and sound general quarters."

Xavier looked over to their tactical officer as the lights on the bridge dimmed, a Korusmian male named Luc'shukumni, Lucky for most of the crew, as he worked to bring the ship to full combat readiness. In addition to the brilliant scarlet of his operations uniform that went strikingly with his deep blue, red, and white feathers, at his side was a scabbard a little over 70 centimeters in length, within which was a weapon that the universal translator rendered into the 'honor claws', a gauntlet with blades that exaggerated the natural claws to a length that only the above-human strength and slightly above-average dexterity of the Korusmian people could leverage to wield the weapon effectively.

Xavier had wondered at the beginning of the war why he seemed so intent to wear it beyond even the current standards of cultural expectation. After having heard the stories of Klingon boarders trying to counter the strength of the Excaliburs by striking at their weakest component, he'd stopped wondering.

"All stations signal readiness, Captain," Lucky said. "Phasers and torpedoes prepared for combat."

"1 minute to Axanar," Cortez called out.

"I'm getting preliminary readings from the… system…" their science officer said, her voice slowly going quieter before a long, dreadful silence.

"What is it, Sheridan?" Hennefer asked.

"The Klingons are bombarding Axanar," Lieutenant Sheridan said, her voice an almost choked whisper.

A chill settled over the bridge, and Xavier saw Hennefer's hand clench. "Signal Captains Garth, Mayfield, and Hux that we're going to disrupt the bombardment of the planet. They're free to join us or to pick up any survivors in distress."

"Aye, sir," the comms officer said, turning to his task as, at last, they dropped out of warp and Axanar came into sight.

It was worse than anyone could have dreaded. The orbit above Axanar was a wreckage field of ships, far too many of them Starfleet vessels, though Klingon D6s, along with smaller craft, intermingled their parts as well. The Pharos station, Axanar Starport, was a gutted hulk, and Seleya and Denali fared little better, though they at least were still largely whole, hopefully salvageable as they tumbled through the debris field.

Above Axanar, 8 D7s, accompanied by 8 wounded D6s, sent disruptor shots and torpedoes lancing down to Axanar's surface, the planet now streaked with oranges and reds where the choking smoke allowed the flames to show through.

As the battle line of Excaliburs bored down on the massacring fleet, Caldbolg signaling that it would break off and begin rescue efforts on the most obvious lifesigns, they stopped firing on the planet, the D6s accelerating away from the D7s towards the oncoming ships. A pitiful attempt at shielding the more valuable cruisers.

"Fire a full spread of torpedoes, targeting two of the D6s," Hennefer said. "Full sweep of phasers as we fly past, then begin targeting the D7s."

The orders were followed even as the Klingons began to fire on them, the weight of a fleet nearly 6 times their number only able to do so much as the Excaliburs began to dance through the oncoming storm of torpedoes and disruptors, their torpedoes spilling out into the void and roaring towards their targets.

Four of the D6s immediately buckled under the weight of fire from the torpedoes, going up as their shields failed and the torpedoes struck reactors and main bodies. The others that managed to survive the torpedoes not standing up for long against the lances of phaser fire that burned through them.

The Excaliburs sped through the blooming fires of the D6s, but not without cost. The Curtana rocked from those shots that managed to connect. "Captain, shields at 45% functionality!" Sheridan shouted. "We can't take much more of this bombardment."

"Break the D7s apart!" Hennefer said. "We'll defeat them in detail!"

"Sir, signal from Captain Garth!" the comms officer said. "He's drawing off four of the D7s towards Caldbolg's position."

All on the bridge looked out at the sight of Garth's plan getting to work, the Tizona deftly halving the battle group and leading one portion slowly away from the planet. That left four to Curtana and Joyeuse. Not the hardest fight to win, but they had to be careful.

And so the battle began in earnest for them, a series of sweeping, deft maneuvers that the hardy, but slower vessels struggled to keep up with. But the D7s managed to get in their licks too, a pair of torpedoes on a lucky vector catching the Curtana amidships, the blow sending her crew nearly sprawling as alarms blared.

"Captain!" Sinclair said even as the ship's retribution cut one of the D7s she engaged in half, snapping its 'head' off its body. "Shields are down!"

"Pull back to a defensive position!" Hennefer said. "We'll dispatch this last one from range."

Before anyone else could speak, another alarm went off, this time from Lucky's station. "Transporter signals from the disabled D7!" Lucky said. "We have boarders on the ship!"

The word were punctuated by a thump coming from the lift doors onto the bridge. Phasers were pulled and aimed at the door, most crew backing away as a blade pierced the seam of the lift doors. Xavier stood beside Lucky as the man slipped his free hand into his scabbard and pulled out his honor claws, tightening a series of straps connected to his fingers and wrist as best he could with the phaser in his hand.

"How many of them are in there?" Hennefer asked, glancing over at Sheridan.

Sheridan dared a glance at her station. "It seems like… 6 of them?" she said. "I'm seeing others appear one by one. They're really starting to-"

Before she could finish, the doors were forced apart, black armored warriors with disruptors and blades of various shapes spilling onto the bridge with guttural shouts. In an instant, phaser pistols hissed and growled, laying low the first rank of Klingon warriors before disruptor fire forced them into whatever cover they could find.

The ship continued on as best it could, firing into the disabled ship with phasers to try and stop the tide of warriors that transported onto the ship. Xavier fired over and over into a group of warriors, seemingly only armed with melee weapons, trying to keep distance between them as one of the warriors he and Lucky shot at fell.

Unfortunately, he found himself backed against a wall as his mind began to rebel against him in the face of impending death. His time in xenolinguistics class kicked in as he noticed a particular word being said, over and over.

Sto'vo'kor.

Sto'vo'kor.

Was it the name of a general? An admiral? A god? A planet of some kind? Something of religious significance? If so, to aspire to or damn others with?

He didn't know. And an overwhelming amount of him braced for the possibility of finding out as he focused on a warrior seemingly utterly focused on him, raising a crescent-shaped blade high.

Then, an almost deafening roar snapped him back into focus as metal claws the length of swords buried themselves into the Klingon warrior's neck, nearly decapitating the being as he fell back with bright red, almost pink blood spilling out.

Lucky roared again, more warriors turning their attention to the sapient dinosaur that seemed to challenge them as Xavier slumped to a seat on the floor.

He couldn't help but watch for a moment as Lucky continued to duel with the Klingon warriors, the weapons-fire on the bridge dying down as these warriors began to flock to the brilliant Korusmian that seemed ready to engage then in close combat. Another class, this one from his high school days, meant that due to Mr. Kelsy's media literacy class being as… eccentric as it was, Lucky reminded him of a legend from old Earth monster films.

They had Godzilla on the bridge with them. And the Klingons seemed to love every second of it.

If nothing else, it allowed Cortez to get back to his station, the ship jumping back to life as the disabled D7 was finally destroyed, leaving the other D7 that had been their target, now with its aft turned to them as it harried the Joyeuse with the D7 that remained.

"Open fire!" Hennefer said as he shot the last of the Klingon boarders that had held back, Lucky dispatching the two that remained. "Let's give the bastard one last surprise."

Xavier could barely pay attention, his heart continuing to pound in his ears as everything seemed to assault his senses all at once. The blaring alarms, the stench of dead Klingons… the sight of Starfleet officers with great gaping wounds in them…

"Hey. Hey, Simon. Simon!"

Xavier blinked as he focused on Hennefer and Lucky. "Are… are we doing alright?"

"We have won the battle," Lucky said. "Are you harmed at all?"

Simon looked down at himself, and the Klingon blood that splattered across his uniform. "No," he said. "No, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I guess… I should have expected the Klingons to do something like that."

"Breathe, Simon," Hennefer said. "You'll need to take a minute, probably."

He paused, his face becoming ashen. "We'll all need that, I think," he whispered.

Simon took a deep breath as he stood. "What about the rest of the ship?" he asked. "Sheridan…"

He faltered for a moment as he saw the sizzling stump of an arm she nursed. "Sheridan, any other boarders here?"

Sheridan turned to her station and started typing on it as best she could. "No more Klingon boarders aboard, sir," she said. "We're still getting death counts."

"Contact the medbay and have them start processing our ship's wounded and casualties," Hennefer said, walking past the bodies and his captains' chair to look at the burning planet.

"I have a feeling they're going to be much, much busier, soon," he said quietly.

. . .

Alfred Hennefer sat in his quarters, silent as he stared at the subspace comms screen, a drink in his hand. He hated how good it tasted. And how well it worked. And the fact that he hadn't even needed it before the war started.

The screen lit up, and Admiral Shevchuk, as it seemed to be every time he made a report, appeared on the screen.

"Captain Hennefer," she said. "We've gotten word on the battle at Axanar. I'm sorry for your losses."

"We stopped the Klingons from wiping out the planet," Hennefer replied with a sip of his drink. "How much that mattered…"

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

Hennefer blinked, his eyes narrowed at the stoic face on the other side of the screen. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The price we pay to defend what we love," Shevchuk replied. "I wish I could have preserved your idealism. Your willingness to defend the Federation from itself. But we have to stay alive in order to do that."

It was silent for long moments, Hennefer taking a pull of his drink. "And you waited this long to… to what? Teach me?"

"You're an intelligent, capable young man," Shevchuk said sternly. "If I had to teach you this lesson, I would have drummed you out the moment I met you. But I don't need to. Because I know you can grow past this war. Channel it into becoming the best captain you can be."

"And how do you know that?"

Shevchuk smiled grimly. "Because I needed to do the same thing when we went through the Romulan War. And if a stubborn old bitch like me can manage it, you're going to do leagues better than I did."

Hennefer finally chuckled darkly. "Thank you for the vote of confidence."

"There is one thing that I want you to remember from me," Shevchuk said.

"That is?" Hennefer said with an arched brow.

"That it can get better," Shevchuk replied, her voice… strangely motherly. "No war lasts forever. And when it does end… we'll need idealists like you to keep us on the right course. People who believe in the Federation more than it sometimes believes in itself."

It was silent between them for the space of minutes, then Hennefer smiled slightly. "We'll see where my idealism is at by war's end, how about?"

Shevchuk returned the smile. "Probably in a better place than you might think."

Edit: Temporal Ripple J7-40-Sigma-Phi stabilized and accounted for. Ripple J7-41-Beta-Rho also stabilized.