Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Proud Legion ❯ Centurion ( Chapter 1 )

Proud Legion
By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R for the good stuff, you’ve been warned. I don’t own Trek, but the people who do probably shouldn’t either.

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Chapter 1: Centurion

Memorandum

From: Office of the President of the United Federation of Planets

To: General Issue

Stardate: 56943.9 ##Tuesday Dec 11, 2379 13:00##

Re: Establishment of a Federation Defense Force; General Order 658213-A4

Effective as of Stardate 57419.2 ##Mon Jun 2, 2380 12:00## Starfleet will establish both an Explorer Corps and a Federation Defense Force under their auspices. All the exploration, scientific, and humanitarian duties of Starfleet will be the responsibility of the Explorer Corps. All border patrol, law enforcement, and security duties of Starfleet will be the responsibility of the Federation Defense Force. Starfleet Command shall make provision for this division of duties as well as establish appropriate chains of command and offices to ensure the administration of these divisions. The commanding officers of these divisions shall report directly to the Secretary of Starfleet. The Federation General Assembly shall revise and expand Starfleet's budget by 6% over the next five years to allow for the Explorer Corps to retain at least 90% of Starfleet's current budget while providing sufficient funds for the Federation Defense Force to raise, equip, and maintain a fleet of no less than 1200 combat vessels and auxiliaries.


United News, Stardate 57050.2 ##Jan 19, 2380 9:00##

Debate began in the Federation Council today over General Order 658213-A4 as senators from no less than eleven worlds, including the Vulcan contingent, but forth a bill to the Council formally protesting the order and questioning its legality. Debate over the bill lasted from the beginning of the day's session until 9:00 PM local time on Earth and is expected to resume first thing in the morning. A com interview with representatives of the Vulcan senator's office has likewise confirmed that another bill with the aim of blocking General Order 658213-A4 is currently being drafted.

United News, Stardate 57063.9 ##Jan 24, 2380 9:00##

A fifth day of debate of General Order 658213-A4 erupted after an announcement by the Federation Governmental Procedure Office that the order in no way represented a breach of procedure an was indeed a legal order. The written statement from the FGPO states "The President of the Federation is well within the bounds of his office as Chief of Starfleet to mandate a reorganization of Starfleet. Likewise he is also justified in this office to mandate new ship production goals and foci. Finally his requested increase in the annual budget for Starfleet operations by 6% per anum over the next five years falls well within the bounds of his office and the Appropriations Committee's authorization limit." This statement did not deter the anti-military faction as no less than five of the delegations opposing the General Order have already indicated that they intend to refer this matter to Federation Supreme Court.

United News, Stardate 57088.5 ##Feb 2, 2380 9:00##

In a stunning turn of events today the Federation Supreme Court released a unanimous decision that they will not accept the anti-military faction's petition regarding General Order 658213-A4 for consideration. While the anti-military faction has swelled to encompass delegations from one hundred and thirteen members that is still far short of the four hundred and eighty three votes needed for a simple majority to block the General Order. Likewise only two of the fifteen members of the Senior Budget Appropriations Committee and three of the eleven members of the Starfleet Budget Appropriations Committee are members of the anti-military faction. Amid the din of protesters outside her delegation's embassy Vulcan senator T'prin assured her supporters by com that the anti-military faction would continue to seek a resolution to this matter.

Taken from the Editorial Section of United News, Stardate 58008.8

This creation of a military faction of Starfleet, which now it appears will happen regardless of its dubious legality, is a repudiation of the core values that have guided Starfleet for the past two and a quarter centuries. The construction of this war fleet will only mark us a threat to the rest of the galaxy. How will our new allies respond to twelve hundred heavily armed warships being launched over the next five years? How will those we have peace treaties view this, on one hand we claim to desire peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and exploration while on the other we ready the forces of destruction. This fleet is being created out of fear, a fear that it will only feed on itself and magnify and project onto others until finally the fear returns to its creators. We can't give in to terror and reactionary armament, we won the Dominion War, we have defeated the Borg twice, Starfleet is capable of handling defensive duties and we can do it without becoming a lightning rod for hate.

Captain Marcus Fletcher, U.S.S. Lelander

Taken from the Editorial Section of United News, Stardate 58012.0 ##Mon Jan 5, 2381 14:00##

With all do respect to Captain Fletcher the core values of Starfleet are just that, the core values of Starfleet, they are in no way binding to anyone else in the Galaxy, something that has been proven time and time again. Within a decade of the foundation of the Federation we were at war with the Romulans, a few decades later it was the Klingons. Then the Borg came, all the way to Earth, then the Dominion and Cardassians decided to repudiate our ideals, and the Borg came again. History has proven time and time again that there will come species and empires and collectives who do not care if we espouse a peaceful philosophy or wish for cooperation, to them we are simply resources, or spare parts, or just in the way, and we must be ready for them. Starfleet has risen to the challenge time and time again to defend us from those who would destroy us but look at the cost. Billions died in the Dominion War, the fleet, even with legions of recommissioned ships, is at less than 30% strength; we lost more than nineteen thousand ships. This fleet isn't going to turn the Federation into an imperialistic power, the proposed fleet is barely more than five percent of new construction and it will still be under the direct control of the Federation council. All this is meant to do is allow the Federation a better chance to defend itself so that when the next Dominion shows up billions won't have to die.

Fleet Captain Timothy Hayes, Commander U.S.S. Typhoon

United News, Stardate 60743.5 ##Thursday Sep 29, 2383 10:00##

The newest battlecruiser of the recently formed Federation Defense Force, the Monsoon class U.S.S. Typhoon NCC-79853, is making final preparations for her commissioning ceremony to be held next week. Once she is accepted into the fleet the Typhoon will activate the newly minted Task Force 1 of the 17th Fleet and the FDF will begin its first official mission by sending the 1st of the 17th to patrol the Romulan border.

*******************************

"You don't look happy sir."

"Why would I Jo, I missed her first impulse test, her first warp test, her first weapons test, her acceptance trials and finally her commissioning ceremony. What in the hell do I have to be happy about?"

Johan Luhrner took a moment to look across the cockpit of the shuttle at his commanding officer, "You only missed a bunch of technical glitches and bad speeches by politicians. I wish I hadn't been there."

"Bullshit Jo, I would have killed to have been there for all that and there's no way you wouldn't have been."

"You're just not going to let me cheer you up are you Tim?"

"No. It's bad enough that they pull me off of her just after they laid the keel but then they make me stay an extra day just to debate some half-wit on a holovid and make me miss my ride out here?"

"The FDF hasn't been popular since it was created, they needed someone to help make the case for the Force and you fit the bill."

Timothy Hayes sank down a little into his seat as his already angry face got worse. "One article, one, and they drag me back to Earth."

"Yes, one well written refutation of the prevailing sentiment by a war hero, I can't imagine why they would deem you a worthy defender of the Force."

"Glad to see that dictionary I got you isn't going to waste."

"Five credit words sir," Jo said with a smirk. His console beeped. "Coming up on the outer doors."

The view out of the shuttle was truly incredible, beneath them the red and purple swirled ball of the gas giant Antares VI swirled away in eons old storms while above it the glimmering spire of Starbase 108 stood like an ornament of the gods. The wide mushroom head of the dark blue station gave way to a cylindrical base, and then another smaller, but thicker disk, another cylindrical section and finally a last ball before that tapered away to nothingness at the end. The gigantic construct was almost ten kilometers in diameter and nearly fifteen tall. All around the enormous station stretched out the feathery tendrils of the Antares ship yards but appearances were deceiving. Next to the titanic station there were few things that would appear to be substantial and the skeletal space docks and construction frameworks of the yards, while large enough to swallow Sovereign and even Titan class explorers whole, weren't among them. Even a casual sweep of the eyes revealed how truly gigantic the yards were. Dozens of ships of every size were encased in spider like gantries and nest like docks. Tim didn't have to look hard to count a half dozen Sovereigns a pair of Titans, a good dozen Akiras and a handful of Intrepids in various states of construction from barely recognizable space frames to partially plated hulls to ships that looked like they were only waiting for a champagne bottle to get under way.

"I really did miss this," he said in hushed wonder.

Jo nodded beside him, "I don't know how I'm gonna cope myself. It's just too bad that the Force yards are on the other side of VI-C."

"I'd love to get over there and have a look but Admiral Janeway wants us moving ASAP."

"How ASAP?"

"Yesterday ASAP."

Jo whistled in surprise as he deftly maneuvered the shuttle towards a docking bay near one of the sets of gigantic space doors on the upper rim of the Starbase.

"How quickly can the ship be ready?" Tim asked.

"The ship was just tied up for supply transfer and we should get loading underway in an hour or two when first watch starts." Tim practically see the gears turning in Jo's head as he started to calculate man power requirements and shifts, he was one of the best managers, and therefore best first officers, that Tim had ever worked with and when he had received this assignment there had been no one else he wanted as his first officer. Sadly this would probably be their last cruise together since he'd be putting Jo in for a promotion to captain when it was over. "We're loading dry though, we're going to have to load everything, fuel, weapons, consumables, supplies, spares, everything. Five days at least, maybe three if we pull everyone off of everything and get them loading along with priority for supplies from the base and maybe a little extra help on their end."

"What about the crew?"

"Ninety nine percent; there are a few more stragglers like you but we've got full watches otherwise. It’s mostly officers though, taking their sweet time getting here."

"Good, don't put everyone on loading detail but I want to be out of here as soon as possible, we're rendezvousing with the rest of the task force at Deep Space Three and I'd prefer not to keep them waiting."

The shuttle glided easily into the docking bay but didn't set down, they cruised past dozens of shuttles sitting in repair and loading bays as they passed down the hundred and fifty meter bay towards the entrance into the bases' core. A slight tug at the shuttle was the only clue that they were back in vacuum as they passed through the second containment field of the bay.

The interior of the starbase was one of the largest enclosed volumes known to man if you threw out the occasional Dyson sphere. Once you were inside the hundred and fifty meter thick outer hull of the upper section the only other part of the station that intruded into the space was the kilometer thick central column that stretched from the floor to the curved ceiling of the space. It was hard to imagine that such a titanic volume could exist and your mind wanted to reject it, or shrink it, but it couldn't. Throughout the interior of the main docking bay docking arms and umbilicals reached out from the central spire and from the exterior walls like hairs and hundreds of starships clung to them, stacked in side by side and one on top of another they filled the interior but there were still as many unoccupied slips as there were occupied. Child-like wonder began to creep into Tim's consciousness only to be displaced by gloom as he got a closer look at many of the ships.

"It's not a pleasant sight," Jo said.

"There weren't anywhere near this many ships here when I left."

"No, we didn't really see the big rush until a few months after you left. I think Starfleet expected to be able to carry out most of the ship repairs out in the field but most of those frontline starbases can only handle a dozen major repairs at a time and there are thousands of ships that need work. It took them almost two years to get everything straightened out and moving."

The area around the space doors was relatively clear of ships and traffic and their shuttle was able to make good time as they passed by the ships moored to the outer wall and into the lane between those ships and the ones moored to the central column that encircled it. "How did some of these ships even make it here?"

"Tows mostly, though some of them weren't this bad when they got here. See that Nebula?"

Tim followed Jo's finger out the side view port to a Nebula class starship that was missing both of her nacelles, her weapons pod and huge sections of its hull. It was all too easy to imagine that as his old ship and he winced at the thought. "Yeah?"

"They've been ripping her apart for spares since she got here."

"What about that Oberth?" Tim said gesturing towards a small battered ship moored to the floor of the bay.

"We got her that way."

"Ouch."

"Yeah but you wouldn't know it from talking to the crew, they say 'Yeah, but you should see the other guy.'"

"That little science ship?"

"Yep, a pair of Jem'Hadar fighters got stranded behind the lines and stumbled onto a civie transport. They started screaming for help but it was behind the lines, there weren't any starships in range..."

"Except for that one?

"Exactly; that little bastard goes charging in and kicks the crap out of both of them, saved the transport and fifteen hundred refugees."

"Two Jem'Hadar fighters versus that thing, it was outgunned what, five to one?"

"More like seven or eight, she only had five torpedoes left."

"Wow."

"She refused a tug, escorted the transport all the way to Risa then made it all the way back here, where, I swear I'm not lying, her core crashed just as soon as the mooring clamps grabbed a hold of her. The crew got the Medal of Valor and the ship and the captain got a Medal of Honor."

"So what's gonna happen to her?"

"Dunno, Starfleet command is trying to decide whether to scrap her or turn her into a museum. The crew is lobbying to have her preserved as is and turned into a monument."

"Sounds like a good plan, she's too small to really make a difference scrapped anyways. What about the crew?"

"Transferred to one of the new Hussars, they'll be part of Task Force Two. Oh, here we go, coming up on slip five twenty four."

The mention of slip five twenty four ended any further attempts at conversation, for the first time since her keel had been laid Timothy was going to be able to see his ship in person, he'd kept up on the reports and logs of her construction but there was nothing like seeing it with your own eyes. It had killed him not to be present when she had been commissioned and it made his longing to see his ship for himself even stronger. Timothy ignored the chatter between his friend, the spacedock harbor master and ship ops, straining to catch the first identifiable glimpse of his command and desperately restraining himself from leaning against the window like a child trying to get those last few degrees into their field of vision.

"There she is," Jo said cheerfully as the rim of the saucer section hove into view from behind a docked OrleansTheir approach from the low starboard forward quarter gave Timothy an almost perfect view of his ship.

The rush to produce a war fleet for the Federation hadn't left a lot of time to create all new designs from the keel up and as a result several well proven designs were modified to create warship variants, though the variants were so different from their ancestors that new class names were given to them all. The small Novas had been gutted of their science labs and been completely overhauled to produce the Hussar corvettes, that while not as deadly as the similarly sized Defiants, also put into full scale production, they were far more livable for long duration cruises. The quad nacelled Cheyennes had been given the most extensive external refit with a large extension of their aft saucers that gave them a look like a much more graceful Constellation to provide the Garret class frigate for the fleet. The Akira's had the simplest transformation, losing a large portion of their shuttle bays in addition to their scientific and diplomatic facilities in their transformation to the Paladin class destroyers. The modularity of the internals of the Nebulas had proven to be an asset when two of their production lines were co-opted by the FDF to produce the Wolf 359 class cruisers. Finally came the largest of the ships, the battlecruisers. Initially the Sovereign class had been pegged for a transformation to an even more potent ship of the line but there were only two production lines, one at Utopia Planitia and one here at Antares, and both were in full swing. To stop a line, convert it to production of a modified class, and start it up would deprive Starfleet of at least five of the fine ships before production of the battlecruisers could even begin production. Instead the FDF turned it's eye to the new Titan class explorers, the initial production run was already underway leading to thunderous praise for the class and a second production line was just being constructed at the Antares fleet yards that could be converted to produce an uprated combat vessel with no delay, though the Explorer Corps demanded the FDF pay for the construction of a new second production line for the Titans. After a minimal amount of inter service squabbling the FDF had a production line for its Monsoon class battlecruisers.

At first glance the Titan/Monsoon's lines appeared to be derived from the Sovereign’s design but that was actually a reversal of reality. The Titan had been on the drawing boards from the day the first Galaxy class ship was commissioned as an eventual successor to those graceful ships; larger and faster than the Galaxies the Titan's would be the next great explorers of Starfleet. The Sovereigns had been the product of a long term hypothetical design project for a warship that could be quickly fielded should a threat present itself, and during the 2365 design update, the update that was eventually fielded, it was decided to make use of the more advanced warp geometries being studied for the Titan but on a slightly smaller scale. Because of the necessity to fit the ship into the warp field being calculated the hull forms of the ships, and eventually the Monsoons, were very similar.

Timothy knew all of this but his breath still caught in his throat as he looked upon his ship for the first time. At nine hundred and forty two meters in length she was the largest ship in the fleet, positively dwarfing the Excelsior and docked near her. Her great elliptical saucer melted into the thick sturdy engineering hull while a pair of warp nacelles arched gracefully upwards and back from the hull. Just like her sister and cousin ships the Titans and the Sovereigns she looked like she was doing warp five even when she was tied up, but unlike her relatives there was a subtle menace to the ship. Her hull was darker than her sisters, a gunmetal gray rather than the soft haze that covered the Explorer Corps ship’s, she didn’t have as many windows lighting her flanks, unnecessary chinks in the armor for a warship. Phaser arrays followed the curves of her hull and dozens of torpedo tube muzzles poked their heads out from under the thick ablative armor of the ship. To anyone familiar with Starfleet ships she was obviously a warship, never meant to explore strange new worlds, only to protect those that did. Timothy loved her at first sight. “My god she’s beautiful.”

“I agree, but uh, you might want to be careful who you say that around.”

“Not here too.”

“They’re everywhere.”

“I just spent two years dealing with these people, why the hell can’t I seem to get away from them?”

“Guess you’re just popular like that boss. Docking Bay 52-C this is Commander Johan Luhrner requesting clearance to land.”

Tim left his First Officer to his job, it was a little strange for a Commander to make a shuttle run to pick up someone, even the captain, but he knew Jo enough to know that he wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. The shuttle glided smoothly up over the top of the saucer section and Tim got his first look at the long row of umbilicals connecting the ship’s spine to the station, providing power, consumables and only an engineer knew what else. As they finally moved from the starboard side of the ship to the port the small docking bay they were headed to in the central spire was revealed, with the ship connected to the loading umbilicals its primary shuttle bay was obstructed and the secondary bay at the rear of the engineering hull that had been in the Titan class had been eliminated for the Monsoons. The shuttle passed easily through the containment field and set down in an empty slot with nary a bump.

“You know if you’re this good with a shuttle it makes me wonder if you’ve been neglecting the rest of your duties.”

“It’s a good thing you said ‘With all do respect,’ if you hadn’t you’d be looking at a court martial.”

Johan shook his head, “Another tour with you, what did I do to deserve this?”

Tim chuckled as he collected his bags. “You were born Jo, you were born.”

“Just leave those; I’ll have them sent over to your quarters on the ship along with the rest of your stuff when it arrives.”

“Alright then, let’s go.”

The two Starfleet officers left their shuttle and checked it back in to the Starbase after leaving orders with the Bolian deck officer to have everything transferred to the ship. They wasted no time in making their way to slip five twenty four; the halls were almost empty, first watch wasn’t set to start for another three hours and the only crews that worked through the nights were assigned to repairs on damaged ships, which is why it was such a surprise to find Admiral Cox, commander of the entire base, waiting for them at the entrance of the slip.

“Admiral,” Timothy said as his hand snapped up into a salute a half second behind Jo’s.

Cox’s hand sluggishly came up in a sad parody of their honorific. “I’m not FDF, no need for that.”

“All the same sir, that’s the way we do it,” Timothy replied. “You seem to be up rather early.”

“Not by choice, I got a call from Admiral Janeway, it appears you’re going to have some visitors in short order, I felt it might be best to tell you in person.”

“What type of visitors sir?” Timothy asked warily.

“A delegation of the old anti-FDF league including Senator T’prin and a gaggle of media types, they’ll be arriving this afternoon.”

“Oh for the love of…”

“I understand that you and Senator T’prin have a bit of a history, that’s why I thought I should tell you in person, though I imagine that Admiral Janeway will be contacting you shortly.”

“Yes sir. We’ve been on opposites sides of the FDF debate since the General Order was drafted, she doesn’t hold us in any kind of esteem.”

“I’ve seen some of your articles, and hers, I think that was some of the most polite hate I’ve ever seen penned.”

“Thank you sir.”

Admiral Cox smiled, deepening the wrinkles on his face. “Unless there’s anything else there’s a pile of paperwork that never gets any shorter on my desk, I might as well get to it early today.”

“Actually sir, we’ve got orders to get underway ASAP, any assistance the starbase could provide would be appreciated.”

“Well you’ve already got first priority on supplies but I’ll see what I can do to get a few extra cargo handling crews assigned to you.”

“Thank you sir.”

“I won’t hold you up any longer, I’m sure you’re ready to get to your ship.”

“Thank you sir, good day sir.”

The admiral nodded and headed for a near by turbolift.

“Well this will be fun,” Jo said as they turned and started down the slipway. “I take it you don’t like the Senator much?”

“Actually I admire her, most of the people I had to deal with while defending the FDF were…less than brilliant, but T’prin was actually a worthy adversary, the media, well, why don’t we see if we can give them a tour of an airlock, the outside of it.”

“I’ll see what I can do sir.”

*********************************

"With all do respect ma'am..."

Admiral Janeway held up her hand. "Just stop right there Tim, nothing that has ever followed that sentence has been respectful."

Timothy was not going to be denied, "Ma'am I'm trying to get my ship underway, I don't have time to be babysitting tourists."

Back on Earth Katherine frowned at the image on her viewer, Timothy Hayes often reminded her of another willful blonde she had been forced to deal with in the past, but he didn't have the excuse of being a former drone. "Captain, the FDF is still not popular with a lot of people in the Federation and we need to take every opportunity we can get to try to improve that."

"Ma'am senator T'prin is not going to change her opinion of the FDF just because some ensign takes her on a tour."

"No, but some ensign isn't going to take her on a tour, you are; and then you're going to make sure that she's comfortable since she's going on your first deployment with you."

"Ma'am?!"

"Tim you heard me, this wasn't my idea but just like you I have my orders. The senator and her aide along with a reporter from United News will be accompanying you on your deployment, you will extend them every courtesy befitting a member of the council and you will treat the reporter with respect, do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"They won't be on board for the duration but expect to have them around at least until DS3. This was dumped on me at the last minute too but this is important Tim, I trust you can understand that."

"Yes ma'am, perfectly ma'am."

Katherine smiled to try to improve Timothy's outlook on the situation. "This is your own fault Tim, if you hadn't come rushing to the FDF's defense like some knight on a white horse you might not have gotten stuck with this."

"In the future I'll be sure to keep my mouth shut."

Katherine's smile was genuine now. "We both know you couldn't keep your mouth shut if your life depended on it."

Tim grinned a little as he replied, "Probably not ma'am."

"Good luck Captain."

"Thank you Admiral, I'll let you know as soon as we're underway."

Katherine closed out the comm connection and sank back into her overstuffed office chair; there were days where she almost missed the Delta quadrant.

***********************

"I've been on this ship for three hours and she expects me to give a tour?"

Across the ready room on the couch under the window Jo shrugged. "You know this ship inside and out, you'll do fine."

"I know the holo-engineering version of this ship inside and out."

"Those were the plans she was built from, all the changes we made out here were put into those plans."

"I just know I'm going to turn a corner expecting to get into a turbo lift and walk right into the enlisted women's gym shower."

"I still do that all the time and I've been here for three years."

"Yeah about that..."

Jo raised his hands defensively. "Joking, joking. Look at it this way, all we're doing is cargo loading right now; the only thing you'd be doing is wandering the ship or reading reports. This'll be good for you."

"Those reports need to be read..."

"And you'll have a long boring year patrolling the border to read them."

"Fine, the senator and company will need quarters assigned along with replicator rations and holodeck time. They'll probably both need access to the comms as well."

"Monitored access?"

"Not for the senator but definitely for the reporter."

"What a world we live in, where politicians are trusted and reporters aren't."

"Get to work Jo."

"Aye aye captain."

***********************

Timothy watched as the last of the reporters filed out of the turbo lift and into the larger foyer area for slip five twenty four and tried not to fidget. He was acutely aware of stares of the dozen members of the press and the small holo-corders most of them wore. Even though he'd spent a good portion of the last three years in front of similar groups the seeming dishonesty of trying to hide a holo-corder in lapel pin still bugged him, he much preferred the few reporters who still used one of the old style halos or shoulder cams. The real source of his discomfort was standing serenely in front of the reporters, seeming even more unflappable than the rest of her species with nary a strand of her severely cut short coal black hair out of place, T'prin waited patiently for the tour to begin.

Tim gave the bottom of his uniform jacket a tug to straighten it out and got the dreaded tour underway. "That looks like everyone. Just in case no one's done it yet I'd like to welcome you all to Starbase one oh eight specifically slip five twenty four. My name is Fleet Captain Timothy Hayes, captain of the Typhoon and commanding officer of the seventeenth fleet's task force one. I'll be giving you a look at the newest ship of the Federation Defense Force and hopefully answering any questions you might have." A dozen hands shot up as one. "Though for the duration of the tour they will need to be confined to the ship." Every one of the hands dropped down. "Senator T'prin, with your leave?"

The Vulcan senator just inclined her head a fraction of an inch.

"Then let's get started, follow me please." Tim turned around and made his way to the slip, the heavy pressure doors that could seal it off from the rest of the base sliding quietly out of the way as he began to walk down the long corridor. "We're going to take the long way today instead of a turbolift so that you all can have a good close look at the ship. The Typhoon is a Monsoon class battlecruiser which are significant modifications of the Titan class explorers, which she edges out in terms of shear size by a few meters in length and about three million metric tons in displacement. Actually modification doesn't really convey the extent of the changes as you'll soon see."

Tim made a sweeping gesture to include the entirety of the slip including the curved transparent ceiling and the magnificent view of the spacedock and the Typhoon it afforded. "What we're walking down is actually only part of the slip; this is just the access way which is built on top of the docking clamps. The corridor is ten meters wide and over a twelve hundred long, it's made that long so that the spacedock could accommodate ships far larger than those in service today." He pointed out the windows to his left to the great dark gray form of the ship looming over them. "As you can see even the Typhoon doesn't take up the entire slip and standard procedure would be to dock two ships along each side of the slip although the Typhoon has this slip all to herself. Below us runs a pair of turbolift channels along with a cargo transfer port and below those is the primary beam that holds the clamps."

"You mean the ship isn't tractored in place?" a voice from the back of the group asked.

Timothy answered without breaking stride; it was a long walk to the gangway. "No, there's no point really, tractor beams are power intensive and interfere with movement around the ship, and you can imagine what would happen to a Work Bee if it ran into a tractor beam holding an entire starship in place. Clamps are free and don't cause those problems."

"Thank you."

"No problem. If you'll look up you'll see the service boom, it contains all the umbilicals that connect the ship's systems to the spacedock. At the moment we're loading slush tritium along with all manner of consumables and there's a similar service boom below the ship that will load anti-matter before we set out."

"Why is the ship as dark as it is?" Senator T'prin's aide asked.

"Several reasons actually, first is the half meter of ablative armor that covers the ship, its anti-reflective and dampening properties give it the dark grey color which we saw no reason to paint over and second there aren't nearly as many exterior viewports on this ship as on a typical explorer."

"There seem to be an awful lot of phaser arrays," another reporter said.

"You're right, the refitted Sovereign class ships have sixteen phaser arrays, and we have seventy two."

"Why so many?"

"There's a finite limit to the amount of energy you can put through even a type twelve array and that limit is far below the power output of a warp core, much less three like we have. So extra phaser arrays were added and rather than an array that runs the perimeter of the saucer section we break it up into four arrays to allow us to engage more targets and put more total energy through our arrays."

They were passing the back end of the nacelle strut and a different reporter asked, "You mentioned three warp cores, why three?"

"An explorer type ship like a Galaxy or Titan has different goals in their design than a warship like a Monsoon. When they design one of those ships they decide on a field geometry, design coils to produce it, calculate the inefficiency of the coils and then using that they size a warp core so that it will produce a sufficient amount of power to reach the desired cruise speed. Since the warp engines are the most power intensive part of the ship if the core can keep them happy then the rest of the ship is fine. In a warship like the Monsoon we'll accept the inefficiency of the coils and will achieve higher speeds by simply dumping more power into the coils, it's a brute force approach to improving warp speeds, and highly inefficient, but this is a warship, speed and power trump fuel economy and component life in an emergency. At a flat out run we can dash at about twice the top speed of a Sovereign but we’re burning fuel more than five times as fast. Also our shield generators are powerful enough that they actually rival the warp engines for energy consumption, to keep them fully supplied and the warp engines functional we needed more power."

"What is the top speed of the ship?"

"That's classified, but I can say that we can comfortably cruise at warp nine point nine plus."

"Just how strong are the ship's shields?"

"Again the exact number is classified but it's well above twenty million terrajoules."

"How many torpedo launchers are on board?"

"Twenty four, all quantum." Tim didn't let the smile he felt appear on his face but he did enjoy getting to brag about his ship. "As you can see we're coming up on the gangway that connects to the engineering hull and another member of the crew is waiting for us. If you'll all give her your attention we'll get through this little briefing quickly and board the ship."

"Good afternoon," the brown haired lieutenant beamed, "My name is Lieutenant Bell and there are a few things we need to go over before boarding the Typhoon..."

Tim ignored the briefing, the gist of it was simply keep your hands to yourself and don't do anything stupid, things he figured that only reporters would need to be reminded of, and still probably ignore. Instead he turned to the one member of the tour party who didn't need the briefing. "Senator, it's good to see you again."

"It is good to see you as well Captain."

"I have to confess, I wouldn't have expected you to be accompanying us, you always seemed to...disapprove of the FDF."

"My position has not changed Captain and neither has your capacity for understatement. Even though I do disapprove of your service that is no reason to be ignorant of it; I believe that this voyage will be most enlightening."

"Wise as ever Senator, I must caution you though, it's a four week voyage to Deep Space Three."

"I am aware of this, and I have taken an extended leave of absence from the council, I expect that I shall be with you for several months."

"And the reporter accompanying you?"

T'prin pointed out a blonde haired woman standing close to the lieutenant. "She is the one who will be accompanying us, though I don't know how long she will stay."

"Is she with you?"

"As for your unstated question captain no, I did not invite her. When she learned of my trip she requested to travel with me. She is interested in my mission but I believe she is also interested in the story of your newly created task force."

"I see, well if you'll pardon me Senator it looks like the lieutenant is almost finished."

"Of course, I will speak to you later."

Tim again straightened his jacket as he took the lieutenant’s place in front of the gaggle of reporters. "Well then, now that that's out of the way lets get started." T'prin resumed her place at the front of the group while the lieutenant took her place at the rear of the group while Tim led them down the gangway towards the ship. "The Typhoon is nine hundred and forty two meters from stem to stern and grosses just north of twelve million metric tons, she, along with her sister ships are the largest ships in Starfleet and outside of commercial super carriers they're the largest ships in the Federation period. Eleven hundred and fifty people will call the Typhoon home whenever she deploys which can be for as long as three years, and contrary to popular belief the habitability standards set by the Galaxies and Titans are equaled in the Monsoons. The biggest difference between the Monsoons and the Titans is that the majority of the science labs and research spaces of the Titan's, along with family quarters, have been removed to increase things like fuel storage, added shield generators and of course, weapons. We've retained a handful of labs and our holo-cores have the necessary blueprints to replicate most any other if the need arises. And now ladies and gentleman, welcome to the U.S.S. Typhoon."

Tim stepped through the hatchway and waited for the crewman on duty to fire off a salute and then bring his pipe to his lips. "U.S.S. Typhoon, arriving!" was followed by the same three notes that had greeted every captain since the days of sail. "At ease crewman, just got a tour group here."

"Aye sir."

"If you'll follow me we'll start our tour with the metaphorical heart of the ship, the engine room."

****************

Tim stood at the back of the group of and let his chief engineer show the group around her humming domain. Terzi Dels wasn't big for an Elysian, which meant she was absolutely tiny when compared to most of the crew, but behind her big blue eyes and pale skin waited an intellect so overpowering that you forgot she was a meter and a half tall and started to feel insignificant beside her. The support frame that allowed her to work in what otherwise would have been crippling gravity for a member of her species was perfectly silent in its operation, with only the silver shoulder plate peeking out from under her uniform tunic to give its presence away. She led the group of confused journalists, the senator and her aide, up onto and across one of the catwalks that stretched over the tops of the warp cores and gave access to their reaction chambers. The three cold warp cores ran from fore and aft on the ship beside each other. Horizontal warp cores weren't uncommon, but they were uncommon on a ship this large.

Terzi pointed to her silent charges. "As you can see we laid the cores down on their sides, this puts more of the ship between the matter and anti-matter injectors which makes the ship's design more damage resistant. Three cores means more work for me and my crew but it means we've got better than triple the power reserves of a Titan. We can run any combination of cores we want to from just a single core to all three at once." Then she started to unload another rapid-fire barrage of facts and figures into her captive audience. Tim doubted she would spill any classified information but even if she did no one would be able to separate it from the morass of data she was throwing at them. Tim chuckled to himself as a few of the journalists actually tried to take notes but were utterly incapable of keeping up with her as she bounced from subject to subject in rapturous glee as she got to show off her babies. A few more minutes of indecipherable engineer-speak passed before she handed the group off to one of her junior engineers and made her way towards the console he was standing by. Most of the group seemed relieved to have relatively slow talking Andorian leading them, except T'prin, "She probably caught it all," he muttered to himself.

"Are we having fun yet sir?"

"Did you enjoy confusing the hell out of those poor people?"

Terzi smiled impishly. "I don't know what you're talking about sir."

"I've seen you explain warp field theory to a three year old so that they could understand it, you blew them away on purpose."

"Maybe a little sir."

"How long will it take to get the ship under its own power?"

The smile disappeared from Terzi's face as she shifted back into engineer mode. "Well if you want we can be to full power in fifteen minutes if we pull an emergency start, it'll shave about five years off the life of the cores though."

"Not an emergency, just a haul ass within the limits."

"Three hours from your go to get one of the cores up so we can be underway, another hour more and the other two will be ready to run sir."

"Good."

"Sir, if it's all the same to you I'd like to run on three cores for the trip to the border, let all the cores get broken in good and get all the parts bedded properly."

"You're the engineer Terzi, that's your call."

"Thank you sir. Is it true that T'prin's going to be riding along with us?"

"How'd you hear that?"

"A little ssylis told me."

"I'm going to have Jo plucked."

"Is she sir?"

"Yes she is, she'll be tagging along all the way to the border and probably even after that."

"You don't seem happy about that sir."

"Not particularly, now if you'll excuse me I think it's time for me to play tour guide again."

"Have fun sir."

***********************

"And here we are at the end of our tour, the bridge, the brain of the ship, if you will." It was strange how the formerly spacious bridge felt claustrophobic with so many people on it who shouldn't be there. "As you can see we're running a skeleton crew right now, we don't need many people on the bridge while we're tied up in spacedock." Tim took a step down into the command pit and stood in front of his chair with his back to the viewer and its image of the workbees scurrying back and forth in front of the ship. He turned around to face his charges and was relieved to see that none of them were touching anything. "Up here port, that's left when you're facing the bow, forward we have the ops area. During normal running only one of those four seats is filled. Port aft, behind you, is the engineering section, only the big console there facing forward is usually manned, we can actually run the ship for more than two weeks with no one in engineering from up here. Center aft is tactical and up here on the railing behind my chair is where the gunners sit. Unless we're in combat only tactical is manned, typically. Starboard aft is damage control, they run our shields, electronic countermeasures, point defense weapons, internal security etcetera. Starboard forward over here on my left is the sensors station, just like ops we can have up to four people up here but typically only one station is manned." He paused to catch his breath and then tapped his chair, "As you may have already guessed this is where I sit, with the first officer on my right and an open spot here on my left for whoever might need it. Finally right in front of the view screen is the helm and navigation, port and starboard respectively."

This time it was T'prin who had a question, "There appears to be more bridge stations than is typical in a starship, even one of the Typhoon's size."

"And you're correct ma’am; there are twenty eight stations on the bridge."

"Why is that?"

Tim was certain she already knew the answer, maybe she was just asking him the obvious before on the reporters got to it. "Division of responsibilities ma'am. On a Galaxy a single officer is responsible for all tactical systems on the ship, twelve or fourteen phaser arrays, depending on the mark, a pair of torpedo launchers, the shields, and all damage control. Since the Galaxies aren't intended to be warships and to only rarely engage in direct combat that's sufficient, however the Typhoon's purpose is combat, and her tactical systems are far more numerous. With seventy two phaser arrays, twenty four torpedo launchers, and three shield grids a single tactical officer would be overwhelmed, so we spilt things up. The tactical officer hands off targeting assignments to the individual gunners who are either given a zone to protect or to go ship to ship. This allows us to effectively target many more enemy vessels than we would otherwise. Also the damage control functions and defense systems have been handed off to a separate defensive systems officer. By reducing the number of simultaneous tasks that each member of the bridge crew has to cope with we allow them to do the tasks they are assigned much more effectively. The new Titans have a maximum bridge crew of eighteen, we have a maximum of twenty eight, but neither of us are going to normally be anywhere near that, we only average twelve crewman on the bridge outside of combat, and only six while cruising at warp in friendly territory."

"Thank you."

"Any other questions about the ship?" There were none. "Any questions in general?" Tim had been expecting this; most of the reporters probably weren't really here for the ship as much for another round of questions about the FDF. "Alright, you in the back in the red shirt."

*****************

Watching the turbolift doors close on the last of the reporters was like having a five ton weight taken off his chest, but there was still another one there. T'prin and her aide, a young Vulcan male, though for a his species that might mean he was fifty, along with the blonde reporter were still there on the upper deck waiting patiently for him to make the next move. "I know the Senator's name quite well but I'm afraid I don't know either of you," Tim said while looking at the reporter and T'prin's aide in turn.

"I am Solin, Senator T'prin's aide," the tall Vulcan replied, though in typical Vulcan fashion he didn't offer anything more. Unlike T'prin's voluminous blue robes that covered her from neck to feet Solin was wearing a simple gray jump suit and jacket and when he stood still the natural reaction was to stop looking at him, to let him blend in, something that made Tim wary of him.

"Bella Mavil United News," the reporter replied and for the first time Tim really looked at her, she was tall, maybe four or five centimeters short of his hundred and eighty five centimeters, and very attractive. He noticed because her red low cut top and black pants did nothing to hide it and everything to accentuate it. Her curly blonde hair framed her face nicely making her look quite young, like she'd just graduated journalism school, and the subtle extra point to her ears and hint of oriental narrowing of her eyes hinted at an ancestry that wasn't entirely human.

Warning bells started to scream in Tim's head, he'd had more experience with newsnet types in the last two years than he cared to and everything about this woman's appearance broadcast an attempt to disarm her subjects by appearing to be young and innocent, 'So she can eat you alive later,' Tim mused.

"Captain if you have a minute I'd like to..."

"At the moment Ms. Mavil..."

"Bella, please."

"At the moment I don't have a minute, but we're going to be in spacedock for..."

"I need to file a story…"

Tim kept his burgeoning frown in check. "...three more days, I have a few things to take care of..."

"I need to file today..."

"...and then we can talk, later." The last word came out hard and final, Tim knew he was scowling but he didn't care. This was the bridge of his ship, HIS ship; the only person who outranked him here was God himself, and even then only in emergencies. The absolute unmitigated gall of this little tart to interrupt him on HIS bridge. "Right now I need to show the Senator and you to your quarters so that you can get your gear stowed away, after that we can discuss a time for your story." Not really the best foot to get off on but he needed to make it clear who was in charge here, he'd met too many reporters who thought that because their face was in front of a camera they could do as they pleased and he needed to set boundaries right away. Before Bella could protest his abruptness he turned to the console beside his command chair and thumbed the comms. "Lieutenant Bell."

The public affairs officer's voice came through crystal clear on the bridge speakers. "Yes sir?"

"When you're done with our guests please meet me at the quarters assigned to Ms. Mavil."

"Aye sir, I just put the last of them on the gangway."

Tim shut the comm system down and plucked his PADD from its recharging slot on the arm of the console pausing to make sure that it had the info he needed. "If you will follow me I'll show you all to your quarters.

T'prin and Solin simply nodded but Bella positively fumed at the way she'd been dismissed. She tried to cover it up but failed and Tim mentally kicked himself for pissing her off before they had even left spacedock.

********************

"So that's the captain?" Harry said looking up from his Ops console.

"That'sss him." His scaly red companion answered.

"You were with him on the Atlas?"

Riway bobbed her head; the small red scales that dotted her mostly human face and grew more common as you approached her collar shimmered in the light of the bridge and the glow of her console. "Yesss, from time he took command." Her sharp nailed fingers pecked at her console as she monitored the loading of one of the cargo bays.

"All through the war?"

"Isssh what I sssaid."

"I heard you did alright," he said, making conversation with his Si'rak subordinate hadn't been easy so far but she was the highest ranking member of his team so he kept after it.

"We fair well. Many Domeenion die by hour clawsss."

"I heard you did better than well."

"Three Breen frigatsss, five Breen cruisersss, four Hideki, twelve Galorsss, hheight Kheldon, thirty one Jeem'Hadar attack ssships, seex battlecroosiers, and two battlesssheeps," she said as her lips curled up in a smile that exposed a pair of gleaming white and elongated incisors.

"That's a little better than well," Harry said duly impressed. He had done some research on his new commander and his former ship but he hadn't heard the total count until just now. "All that in a Nebula?"

"Uprated, weeponsss pod."

"Still..."

"We do our dutee, nho more, nho lessss."

"Starfleet didn't seem to think so, the Medal of Valor for the whole ship and the Medal of Honor for the captain."

Riway shrugged. "Fhhight or die, thossse optionsss, we nho die, sssame asss everyone elssse," she said as she brushed a strand of her short green hair out of her face.

Harry never thought that he'd been lucky to be stuck in the Delta quadrant until he'd heard about the Dominion War. He felt a touch of survivor's guilt that he hadn't been there for the war, but also a little relief. "Are you looking forward to getting back out into space?"

"Yesss, ssspend thoo much time in ssspace dhock, thoo many peoplesss."

Harry didn't comment on the fact that they'd be sharing the ship with twelve hundred other people but he knew that Si'rak were mildly empathic and that they rarely had settlements larger than five thousand people on their homeworld. Apparently they found a certain amount of background mental buzz from those around them agreeable but too many people and the buzz became a roar. Spacedock with its millions of people must be almost unbearable for her. "I'm looking forward to it too. I got used to waking up to new stars every morning on Voyager, being cooped up at Starfleet command and then Spacedock for three years has just about driven me crazy."

"I have heard leettle of Voyager'sss time in Delta, what deed yhou dooo?"

Harry's cherubic face positively beamed when Riway finally seemed to join a conversation. "Have I ever told you about the time I was infected with a deadly virus by Borg killing creatures from fluidic space?"

********************

The turbolift ride was mercifully short and Tim didn't have to look at her as they traveled, but he could still feel the two spots on the back of his head where the reporters eye's were trying to bore straight through his skull. He was going to have to find a way to mollify her quickly or every story she was going to file in the next four weeks might reflect badly on the Typhoon and the FDF in general.

"Deck four section one," the sure feminine voice of the ship's computer announced as the lift's doors slid open with a whoosh and Tim stepped out into the corridor.

"The colors are a little more threatening than they were on the last ship," Bella observed as they walked.

"Starfleet's always trying out new color schemes, trying to see what works best," he explained, he supposed that the colors were a little harsher than might be normal for a ship of the Typhoon's vintage, the tans and browns that were the used in the Sovereigns and Titans had been used in the Monsoons but he could see how the steel colored panels at the top and bottoms of the walls might add a little hostility to the look; and then the solution hit him. "Although the steel colored panels at the top and bottom of the walls had to be that color."

"Why is that," Solin asked flatly.

"Because they're actually holo-emitters."

"Why didn't you mention that on the tour," Bella asked suspiciously.

"Well thanks to the commercialization of the technology, holo-decks have a bit of a sordid reputation in some areas. Finding out that every space in the ship had holo-emitters might not sit well with some people, and the rest of the group was just stopping by so they got the five cent tour, since the Senator and you will be with us for a while you get to see some things they don't."

"Why is that, I thought you said on the tour that the ship had holo-decks, why would you need the whole ship to be one?" Bella asked.

"Not for recreation I assure you," he said. "Actually let's stop here for a moment." He tapped the glossy black computer console that ran the length of the hallway at shoulder level. "Computer, activate the emergency triage, standard maintenance, and internal security holo-programs, all in standby mode."

"Affirmative."

Three utterly nondescript individuals materialized in the middle of the hallway. On the left was a female human nurse in a typical uniform, in the middle was a totally forgettable human male in a Starfleet engineering uniform and on the right was a burly, but plain, security officer in light combat armor.

Tim pointed to each hologram in turn and said, "I'd like to introduce you to Alice, Mike, and Bob. Sorry if they don't greet you back, they're a little lacking in the social graces."

"Interesting captain, what are these programs for?" T'prin asked.

"Well as their names suggest is an emergency nurse, Mike is a maintenance program, and Bob is for security. In 's case she can be summoned instantly anywhere someone needs medical attention to stabilize them until a medical team arrives or they can be transferred to sickbay. Mike handles simple things like routine maintenance rather then tying up valuable personnel on simple or repetitive tasks; he also can be used to help repair battle damage as long as the holoemitters still work in an area. Bob is used for internal security to augment the internal shielding and weapons. Any of them can be used anywhere at anytime. It reduces response time to emergencies and in Mike and Bob's cases it reduces the risk to personnel, there will still be a need for humans obviously as these three aren't actually self aware and are simply extensions of subroutines in the main computer, and there will be times when these three are either insufficient or unable to get somewhere maybe because the holo-emitters in an area were damaged."

"You said that...Bob there is for internal security, couldn't boarders simply destroy the emitters to get rid of him, them, and where is his phaser?"

"Good questions, first off there are lockers in every section of the ship that contain emergency medical kits, maintenance kits, and phasers; any time these three are called up they'll make for the nearest locker and retrieve the supplies. As for taking out the emitters well there are four panels in each hall section, between the ceiling and the walls and between the deck and the walls," he said indicating the metal strips, "and these coatings on the outside are hardened to resist weapon's fire. While boarders are trying to take out the emitters Bob here would be taking them out, and you'd have to take out every emitter along the corridor for it to work, and there's the back up."

"What back up," Bella asked almost excitedly. Tim could see the wheels spinning behind her eyes as she thought of the advantage she would have over every other reporter that had been here today.

Tim reached up and tapped a black strip that ran just below the holo-emitters at the top of the bulkhead. "Phaser strips, type III. They line every corridor in the ship, between them, Bob, and the shields that can block off every section on the ship, the life expectancy of an intruder onboard the Typhoon is measured in microseconds."

"So there are emitters in all the crew quarters as well?"

Tim knew exactly where Bella was going with her question and he was going to end it as quickly as possible. "Yes, but to answer your next question no, the crew does not have access to them. A member of the senior staff's authorization is required for any non-emergency use of the emitters outside of a holodeck. Computer end programs." The three holo-crewman vanished in a swirl of dissolving color; Tim turned to lead them down the hall but stopped when he saw lieutenant Bell coming towards them, the usual warm smile plastered on her face, he didn't know how she managed it but she could stay pleasant in the middle of a Klingon feast, which was why she was the perfect public relations officer. "Ah, here's the lieutenant now, Ms. Mavil she'll show you to your quarters, Senator if you'll please follow me."

******************

"Was that so bad?"

"Yes!" Tim snapped.

"Oh come on, that reporter girl is pretty cute."

"Jo, I'm asking you as a friend, and telling you as your captain, keep it in your pants around her."

"Oh that's rich, remind me again which one of us had to be treated for a dislocated shoulder and lacerations at five in the morning on

"You can't hold that against me just because you struck out with her."

"Ok fine, but I'm not the one who caught Leckvari flu on shore leave, twice."

"The symptoms are completely different for an Andorian, you know that."

"Did those ever heal?"

"Shut up Jo."

"How many hard copies of the 'Interspecies Protocol' do you have now, seven, nine?"

"Three. How's the loading going?"

"Heh, alright. Pretty good so far. The bulk loading is at about sixty percent, but that's the easy stuff. The critical path is going to be the ten million odds and ends that have to be brought aboard that are too small to do it with workbees and loaders."
"How's the fuel loading going?"

"Pretty well, the tritium tanks are at twenty five percent, they should finish loading late tonight, figure about oh four hundred. They'll start loading anti-matter tomorrow about ten hundred, maybe a little after, that'll take until about that time the day after."

"Good, how long do you think before we can depart?"

"We're getting a lot of help from the starbase, assuming we keep that I think we can be ready to cast off in sixty hours."

Tim was impressed. "That's a bit ahead of schedule."

"Like I said, lot of help from the starbase, and both crews are really working hard. Of course Harry's little invention helped."

"Mr. Kim?"

"That's the one; he's got a hundred copies of Mike helping with the loading."

"Well I'll be damned."

"Surprised the hell out of me when I first saw it, he wrote the subroutine in two hours and we've got a crewman monitoring and directing each crew but they're working."

"I suppose it's going to take a while to get used to having holographic crewman like this."

"I dunno, Harry seems to be taking right to it. I guess the Admiral was right about that boy."

"Apparently, I'm impressed with him that's for sure. Couldn't happen at a better time either, the sooner we're out in space the better."

"Much better."

"I want an O Group tomorrow morning, oh nine hundred, senior staff only for the moment, we'll bring the juniors in later, and readiness to launch is what I'm concerned with."

"I'll see to it that everyone knows."

*******************

"How did this happen?" the balding medical officer asked as he peered at a vicious gash on the lieutenant’s hand.

"I was attempting to increase the efficiency of crewman Daniel’s loading operations," the blonde said in her usual imperiously perfect diction.

"I assume you were as tactful as always."

"Captain Hayes issued explicit orders that loading operations be completed as quickly as possible. Crewman Daniel's constant conversations with ensign Nurchal were not facilitating that endeavor; I attempted to correct this deficiency."

The doctor frowned, more than normal, "I'm going to assume that ensign Nurchal's spinal ridges aren't the cause of this injury."

"That is correct, when crewman Daniels saw me approaching he ran his grav-sled into a stack of crates upsetting a tool case, I attempted to catch it. I failed."

"Obviously. You're not a drone anymore Seven, you can't catch a tool case in one hand and not expect it to be damaged, certainly not your unaugmented one. I'm beginning to wonder if not removing all the rest of your implants when we had the chance was wise."

"On the contrary Doctor, my sensory and cardio muscular implants are quite beneficial, only the cortical implants were impairing my proper function."

"That's a matter of opinion." The holographic doctor picked up an instrument from the small triage kit and quickly cleaned the wound. "I assume you came to me rather than just regenerating because of the time."

"Correct, the amount of regeneration time required to restore optimal functionality is becoming excessive," Seven said with a hint of annoyance as she watched the green beam sterilize her wound.

"Are you getting enough sleep?"

"I am... uncomfortable with the practice."

The Doctor paused before using the dermal regenerator, "That's not what I asked."

"I prefer regenerating in my alcove."

"Unfortunately for you your alcove isn't going to be enough to sustain you anymore. You don't have a sufficient number of nanoprobes anymore to maintain your body without sleep, bathing, or food, speaking of which..."

"I have been consuming a sufficient amount of nutrients as you requested," she said with determination.

"I noticed," the Doctor said haughtily as he set down the regenerator and picked up a PADD. "Five hundred grams of vitamin impregnated protein and plant fiber paste? Seven, that’s not a meal."

"It is sufficient."

"This is hardly better than raw replicator feed!" he said exasperated.

"It is the precise amount of food with the nutritional value that you prescribed."

The EMH shook his PADD at his semi-Borg patient before tossing it on the biobed behind him. "It wasn't a prescription Seven; you are allowed to enjoy this."

The former drone's only response was one gracefully arched eyebrow.

"Fine then, if you're going to be difficult about this, notify me before your next meal and I'll join you unless I'm tending a stubbed toe or some equally weighty medical matter."

"Very well Doctor, may I return to duty?"

"Yes you may," he said gesturing towards the door.

"Thank you Doctor," she said before sliding off the bed and heading for the door.

The Doctor watched her leave, his holographic eyes taking note of the movement of her hips for a split second longer than necessary before he started to clean up his instruments.

********************

His cabin seemed smaller than it had in the holo-design. It was subjective of course, he knew he'd need a micrometer to find any differences in the size between the photonic and actual room but it just seemed smaller. The view, however, couldn't be faulted. The vast open expanse of spacedock spread out before him, graceful starships shining against a glimmering cobalt blue background. A bit of movement in the distance caught his eye and what he first thought to be a shuttle moving through the dock revealed itself to be a starship as it passed behind the distant but familiar form of a Nebula class starship.

A familiar sense of longing took hold of his heart as he gazed at the far off ship. It was the same every time he saw a Nebula, even after three years out of her command chair he still missed the Atlas, she had been his first command and his first love. Most people thought that their sisters of the Galaxy class were the most beautiful of the family but in Tim's eyes no ship had ever been lovelier, not even the Typhoon. The Typhoon was like his second wife, special, beautiful, beloved, but she would never be able to replace the Atlas. He'd been given command of her a year before the war began, before that she'd been the providence of another captain for three years, but she would always be his. They'd spent their first year in deep space beyond the badlands, taking advantage of the gap between the Cardassian and Romulan Empires to explore towards the core. It had been a glorious year in deep space exploring places that no one from the Federation had ever seen; it gave him just enough time to become comfortable as captain before the war began.

The war, he still didn't like to dwell on it. It had been the darkest time the Federation had known, they'd come so close to be being destroyed and they'd only survived because of a rogue captain's connection to some aliens. Unlike most of his compatriots he refused to call what had happened a victory, they hadn't defeated the Dominion, in fact the whole Dominion was still on the other side of the wormhole, all they'd done was drive them back. Still, the Atlas, and her crew, had performed remarkably.

He glanced over at the plaque that had been the first thing he'd hung on the wall of his new cabin, pieces of scorched green, yellow, and purple hull metal were mounted on a plaque made of dark red wood right beneath the hull outlines of different types of Breen, Cardassian, and Dominion ships. Beside each outline was a date and time and place, the exact when and where each of those enemy ships had died beneath the guns of the Titan. He raised his cup of coffee in mock salute to his fallen enemies and returned it to his lips for a sip. A similar display, without the pieces of hull metal, had been painted on the port side of the bridge module of the Titan and even though it was strictly against regs, as far as he knew it was still there. The plaque had been a parting gift from his crew when he'd transferred to the embryonic FDF, and it was something he treasured deeply.

Tim sighed and took another sip of the strong black brew. After the war they hadn't been able to return to exploration, they'd spent two years patrolling the Cardassian border and that had been where he'd become convinced that Starfleet needed to do something, anything, to protect itself better. Two years later, late in twenty three seventy eight, they had been returned to their exploration duties and for two years they had tried to return to normal, they almost succeeded.

He had loved the exploration, the newness, the opportunity to go places no one had ever gone before, but there had always been the concern in the back of his mind that something would happen, the Dominion would find a way through the wormhole, the Klingons would decide they'd had enough of peace, the Borg, something would come spoiling for a fight again.

General Order 658213-A4 had been exactly what he'd been waiting for, and as much as he loved exploration he knew that he'd never be happy doing it unless he could be sure that the Federation was safe. At 12:01 on Jun 2, 2380 he'd transmitted his transfer request to Starfleet Command, four months later the Atlas had docked at Deep Space Nine to deliver her old captain and to meet her new one. It had been bittersweet, he'd known what he was doing would be important, but that hadn't made it any easier to say good bye to the ship that had been his command for eight years.

His free hand drifted up to touch the rank insignia on his collar, the black pip in a gold box, a Fleet Captain, he'd been promoted as soon as he'd arrived back at Earth, along with the news that he would be commanding the very first task force the FDF would field and receiving notice to report to the Antares fleet yards to oversee construction of his flagship. The welds on the Typhoon's keel hadn't even cooled when he'd written that first scathing editorial. It had been the dumbest thing he'd ever done, within a week he'd been summoned back to FDF Command and unceremoniously shoved into the firing line of every FDF hating reporter and politician in the Federation. For two years he'd accomplished little besides making sure that a few hundred seats didn't get up and walk away from their talkvid sets.

But now he was here, on the Typhoon, preparing to get under way and do what needed to be done.

***********************

Bella Mavil sat in front of her computer and wracked her brain for a story; even if it wasn't published she wanted to put something in front of her editor every single day. She needed to make sure that her name was never far from him and that he would always be able to quickly find an example of her writing that would prove how good she was.

She considered the holo-stuff angle for about two seconds before dismissing it. Doing it smacked of sensationalism and personal holodeck type things were beginning to become quite common among the wealthier members of society. She'd been to a party where that had been the gimmick, everything in the house had been holographic, you'd stand up and your chair would change form, or a fluorescent blue pillar of light would serve you drinks. Even a few of the more daring guests had worn holographic clothes that continuously changed form and color. There might be a little kernel of interest in these things being installed everywhere on the ship but the whole lock out thing killed it. It was page three material at best. She might resurrect it for her on-line journal later, she could play fast and loose with it since it was unofficial, and the story might be something the people who visited it could appreciate.

A story on the ship lasted a little longer, between the tour and the PADD the overly helpful PR officer had given her she certainly had the technical side of it covered but a story like that would only keep techno-geeks entertained. Front page of the tech section material, and it wouldn't hurt to show some diversity in her work but she'd need a lot of time to polish it to keep it from being dull so she shelved that as a long term project.

The crew? Human interest pieces usually did pretty well but they rarely made the true front page, the life section maybe. Besides, she had barely met any of the crew outside of the Captain and Lieutenant Bell, and the lovely PR officer was trained to dodge questions.

The captain? The thought struck her as she considered what she knew about Timothy Hayes, a decorated war veteran, a man who had spent time as a bona fide Starfleet explorer only to turn soldier and then back to explorer and finally back to soldier. Aside from that, nothing. His service record or a good part of it at least, was public record but aside from that she knew little about him, a few minutes spent checking the datanet confirmed that no one else did either. Whenever he made a vid appearance or a written debate he never talked about himself, just the FDF.

The beginnings of what was sure to be an award winning story started to form in Bella's head, the man, the machine, the system. Timothy Hayes, the Typhoon, and the FDF. Text started to scroll before her eyes as an outline started to take shape in her head and she began to dictate to her computer. She wouldn't have a story for her editor today or even anytime soon, but when she did, she would be famous.

**************************

Timothy relaxed in his conference room chair, it wasn't as comfortable as the one in his ready room but when things were quiet it didn't threaten to let him doze off like his overstuffed one did either. The long obsidian conference table was lined with similar, though a bit smaller, chairs down each of its sides. The wall that butted up against the back of the bridge had a large view screen in the middle of it, currently displaying the Typhoon's Master Systems Display, the MSD, and on either side of that were murals of actual typhoons. The opposite wall of the room was hardly a wall at all; instead it was half a dozen large transparisteel windows that showed off the station's central spire and the dorsal umbilicals that connected the starbase to the ship.

He had arrived early but he didn't have long to wait as his senior staff started to file in a few minutes before nine. The first to arrive was as always Deekan Braal. The Capellan tactical officer had served with him on the Atlas coming aboard in the middle of the war after their original tactical officer had died repelling Jem'Hadar boarders. The old descriptor of "tall dark and handsome," could certainly be applied to the man as he stood over two meters tall and had black hair and ruddy skin. His hair was long but he kept it in a braid almost all the time. The Capellan had proven to be an excellent officer and while he'd been stand offish and a bit cold when he'd first come aboard the Atlas over time he'd warmed up and though he presented a stoic front he was a good natured fellow. Many people had been caught off guard when the severe looking giant would make an offhanded joke in his gravely monotone. Fiercely loyal to Timothy personally, as soon as he'd heard that Tim was transferring to the FDF he too put in for an immediate transfer and got it. Three years and a promotion later, Commander Braal was sitting at his table, a definite comfort to Tim as he knew that his tactical department would be well looked after.

The next to arrive was Terzi Dels, though that would only last until the warp cores came on line. Once that happened Tim knew that she'd beg out of as many meetings as possible, just as she had on the Atlas. Starfleet engineers were known to be obsessive about their machines and even in a sea of obsession Terzi stood head and shoulders above the rest. With three warp cores to look after and a hull full of brand new machinery Tim knew that Terzi would spend the next three years in a tritanium haze, her head buried in an access panel of some system or other. Her blonde hair was cut short to keep it out of the way but it looked better than it had during the war when she had sliced it down to within a half inch of her skull after a large chunk of it had been burned away in a fire. The pixyish Elysian quickly grabbed a seat beside her tall Capellan friend and launched into a series of questions about shield grid performance and phaser capability. Tim found it hard to keep up even though Deekan didn't but from the gist of things it sounded like Terzi already had more than a few ideas for improving the weapons systems of the ship.

With only a minute to spare a rather harried looking young Asian man hustled into the conference room and sat down across from Terzi. Harry Kim was the only member of the command crew who hadn't served with Tim on the Titan but he didn't have any reservations about the newly minted lieutenant commander. According to every report he'd read the young man had acquitted himself well in extremely difficult circumstances, and he came with Admiral Janeway's personnel recommendation in addition to having spent three years at Jupiter Station with Dr. Zimmerman and Voyager's EMH developing the new holo-crew system. Tim hadn't had much contact with Harry since he'd been stationed on Earth but Jo's reports of his work practically glowed in the dark. His title, chief of operations, or just ops, was a bit of a catch all; it meant that he was responsible for everything except the tactical systems and the maintenance of the ship itself. Terzi would keep the ship functional and Deekan would keep it fighting, everything else, which would make up the majority of the ships life, would be his responsibility. It was a lot of responsibility but the reward was that the ops track got you command of a ship a lot faster than coming up from the gun deck or the engine room.

Finally Johan Luhrner came ambling in at precisely oh nine hundred, taking his seat at Tim's right, directly across from Deekan. Jo had been with Tim since the Atlas, all through the war and through its various ups and downs. Tim suspected that Jo was personally responsible for the mass migration of a good part of the Atlas' crew to the FDF and eventually the Typhoon. This deployment was bittersweet in a way because like most of the Atlas' crew that were now on the Typhoon Jo was in dire need of a promotion. Starfleet wasn't exactly an up-or-out type of organization but it did have its track, and Jo and the rest of the crew were dangerously close to falling off of it. If he wasn't promoted soon the best Jo could hope to wind up in command of would be a corvette or a small survey ship. Tim was already talking to the right Admirals to make sure that when this cruise was over Jo would be promoted, kicking and screaming if need be, to captain and get a ship of his own. Deekan would probably be promoted first officer in his wake. Terzi was still young enough that she could spend another cruise in the engine room after that but then it would be her turn. Harry would probably need to be promoted as well, which would put him off the ship, but that was years in the future and he'd worry about it then. Yes this cruise would be the last time the whole Atlas crew would all be together and Tim was determined to make it count.

"Thank you for deciding to join us Commander."

Jo pretended to yawn and scratched at nonexistent stubble, "Not a problem sir."

"Alright, this should be short and sweet, all I need to know is how perpetrations for launch are going, and we can save everything else for a proper O-Group the day after tomorrow."

Tim could just catch the subtle head nod that Jo gave Deekan a half second before the tall Capellan started. "Torpedo loading is currently at sixty eight percent and we'll have our full compliment by thirteen hundred hours. All weapons and shielding systems have passed their final level three diagnostics. Our full compliment of marines have already arrived and are in the process of loading their equipment, the current estimate to finish this is twenty one hundred hours tonight at which point we will be ready to depart."

"And the fighter squadrons?"

"Once we depart the station they'll meet up with us prior to the jump to warp."

Tim nodded, "Very well."

Terzi quickly sat her PADD down and started her own report. "Right now all the engines are cold but we can be ready for space in three hours. Since we're black at the moment and we've already knocked out the punch list I've put everyone I can spare on the loading, and everyone I couldn't has started a level two diagnostic of anything they can get their hands on. The tritium tanks are topped off and antimatter loading will start in about an hour and run through till tomorrow. When that's done we're ready to go whenever you are bossman."

"Good."

And now it was the new guy's turn. Tim knew that Harry had to be feeling out of place as the only non-Atlas person in the room but it was important that he get over that and gel with the rest of the senior staff immediately.

Harry cleared his throat and gave his PADD a final once over before starting. "As of five minutes ago all systems were green with no faults reported..."

"None?"

"No sir, no mechanical faults in any of the ship's systems."

Tim looked over at Terzi and the small Elysian shrugged. "We haven't had anything else to do."

"Go ahead Mr. Kim."

Harry nodded and consulted his PADD again. "Cargo loading is ahead of schedule; right now it looks like we'll be able to ship out another four hours ahead of schedule."

"And why is that?"

"Sir?"

"Why are we ahead of schedule Mr. Kim?"

"I umm, I added a subroutine to the holo-crew programs to allow us to use them to help load, with a uh, normal crewman supervising."

"How many holo-crew are running right now?"

"One hundred sir, I didn't want to stress the system."

"What's the design limit of the system?"

"Well sir each holo-crew man requires approximately point oh two five percent of the computer's cap..."

"Short answer Mr. Kim."

"I designed it for four hundred holo-crewmen at the maximum."

"Well since we're already in spacedock why don't we give your little menagerie a stress test, say six hundred?"

"That's..."

"More than the design limit I know, but we need to make sure this thing isn't going to cry uncle if we push its limits a little, this is a ninety ninth percentile ship Mr. Kim, if we get into it we're going to be violating a lot of limits on equipment."

"Yes sir. The subroutine is simple enough that so long as we don't try to activate the standard subroutines..."

"I assume that means you can do it?"

"Yes sir," Harry said with a little more confidence.

"Good, how much time will that shave off the loading process?"

"I'll have to run some numbers at my console to get the exact number but I would suspect at least twelve hours sir."

"So we should be able to cast off in... thirty six hours?"

"About sir."

This was the second time that Jo had heard everyone's reports so he knew when Harry was finished and when he could start to give his own. It was just part of his style to hold a "pre-meeting" with the department heads before any actual meeting with the captain. Not only did it keep him on top of things so that the meetings ran smoothly but it let him get his people started on solutions before the captain even heard the problems. It made them look good in front of the captain, which gave Tim more confidence in his subordinates, and it helped the rest of them out by making them start to solve problems early, hopefully instilling a little more of a take charge attitude. "The crew is almost all aboard; the only people missing are the fighter squadrons' pilots and crew who'll join up with us when we depart and a few stragglers. I'll get a hold of them and let them know of the new schedule. We have clearance from spacedock to depart whenever we want and I've notified the Task Force that they need to be assembled at DS Three in four weeks. As soon as we finish loading we're ready to go."

"Very good work everyone, especially you Mr. Kim. Before we break up there are a few things I need to go over. First off you all know that we're taking Senator T'prin and her aide along with a reporter from United News for a ride. I just want to reiterate that the Senator is the only person in that group who has the clearance to go where she pleases, both her aide and the reporter, especially the reporter, are to be kept out of all restricted spaces without exception, understood? Alright then, lets all get back to our jobs so we can get in space as soon as possible. We'll have a full O-Group tomorrow at fifteen hundred in expectation of a twenty one hundred departure. Dismissed."

*****************

"You might want to go a little easier on the boy," Jo said as he sat in a chair across the desk from his friend.

Tim looked up from the work manifest that Jo had given him a minute before. "What?"

"You rode the boy kinda hard in there Tim."

"I didn't do anything I don't normally do."

"Really? You think so?" Jo asked suspiciously. "Did you interrupt Deekan or Terzi? Me?"

"I needed to clarify a few things."

"Exactly, you had to clarify some things. You just took everything the Atlas crew said at face value but you made the boy explain himself."

Tim dropped the PADD on his ready room desk. "I needed more info on those holo-crewmen he's using."

"But did you have to question him about the physical faults, or interrupt him for the holo-crew?"

Tim glared at his first officer. "Your point?"

Jo didn't let his captain's tone bother him, Timothy was a good man who was willing to listen and learn, he just wasn't always happy about it. "You don't have to be a Betazoid to tell that you trust the rest of us implicitly but that you're not too sure about the kid."

"I doubt anyone noticed it."

That was a lie. "Even so, if it happens often enough some people might catch on. The last thing we need is an Ops manager who isn't given the respect he deserves, or worse, one who doesn't think he deserves it."

Tim's glare softened. "I'll see what I can do."

"Just save the questions till the end and maybe ask Terzi or Deekan some questions too."

"None for you?"

"Come on bossman, you know I don't make mistakes."

*********************

"How can you eat that stuff?"

"I put it in my mouth and chew," Deekan replied.

Terzi looked at his plate, piled high with all manner or rich and spicy foods. "Makes me sick just looking at it."

Deekan ignored his small friend's protests, he often wondered how she could eat the same bland Nachial porridge everyday and that nutrient bar but he had the decency not to ask.

"Hey Harry!" she called to someone behind him and across the officer’s mess, "Come sit with us!"

Deekan turned around and saw the ships operations officer smiling sheepishly. Even in his thirties Harry Kim had a boyish quality to his appearance that was impossible to shake.

"Hi, I didn't where I was going to sit."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Terzi said as she gestured towards the large mess hall. "No one around here bites, well except maybe the Ottliians, but they usually ask first..."

"We are happy to have you eat breakfast with us," Deekan said.

“Yeah, tickled,” Terzi said as she ate a spoonful of her porridge. “So how do you like the Typhoon?”

Harry took a moment to arrange his tray as he considered his response. “It’s big.”

“She is isn’t she,” Terzi said with a smile.

“Is the size an issue?” Deekan asked.

"Size is always an issue Deekan,” Terzi said with an impish smirk.

The Capellan frowned at his little friend and Harry had to hide his grin with a forkful of food. “It just takes some getting used to,” he explained after swallowing. “I’ve got more people in my department than were aboard Voyager. I think this ship is larger than Jupiter Station even.”

“It is,” Terzi chirped, “but a holo-research center doesn’t need lots of space, you guys can make it!”

“Well, sort of, he holodecks don’t really get any….”

“Oh come on Harry, we’re not freshman cadets.” Terzi scolded him playfully.

Harry blushed a little, flustered to have tried to lecture the ship’s engineer on how one of her systems worked. ‘”Yeah, I guess not.”

Terzi took a quick scoop of her porridge and smiled. “Lighten up, it’s not a big deal.”

Harry relaxed and went for a bite of his vegetables.

“But if it happens again I’ll have Deekan kill you.”

Harry blanched and looked up quickly at the Elysian and Capellan. Deekan just nodded.

“Wow, Tom was right, you are gullible.”

“You talked to Tom?” Harry said.

“Oh yeah, when he found out you were transferring he looked me up and made sure to send me a list.”

“A list, wait, how do you know Tom?” Harry said, less embarrassed then interested.

“Well engineers need pilots to test their engines.”

Harry chuckled, “Well I guess it’s a small galaxy.”

Deekan calmly took another bite. “That it is.”

*********************

Timothy Hayes tossed the PADD down on his desk and rubbed his temples. Too many hours staring at the display reading personnel files were taking their toll. He hadn’t bothered with the senior staff, they’d been handpicked and were for the most part old Atlas crew. The few that weren’t came highly recommended from people he trusted. The general crew though, he’d never admit it but he’d been nervous. The FDF was still unpopular with a great many people, and the personnel office could determine who wound up in the FDF. There had been a very real concern that the FDF would wind up with the weakest of the graduates of the Academy and the cast offs of the explorer core. Thankfully that was not the case if the performance reviews he’d been reading were correct.

If anything it appeared that they were getting the cream of the crop from the fleet and the academy, more than half the crew of the ship was Dominion War veterans and the rest came with glowing recommendations and stellar service records. They weren’t all perfect, but overall it looked to be a fine crew.

Getting up from his desk Timothy walked to his bedroom. His cabin was the largest on the ship, large enough to warrant separate rooms with doors. The door into his cabin opened into his sitting area, a large space with a few couches and one large recliner for him. A large view screen dominated the wall the door was on while the far wall curved back gracefully and was dominated by a half dozen windows that went from the back of a couch up to the ceiling. On the right was his dining area, a long oaken table big enough for a dozen people sat in the middle of it with massive matching chairs spread around it. A half wall separated the dining area from the rest of the room and the top of it nearest the windows was covered in ferns while the side nearest the door had a three meter long, meter wide and deep fish tank full of brightly colored fish, most of which couldn’t be found in Earth’s oceans. Off to the left of the door was the hall way to his office and his bedroom and bath.

He sighed when he walked into his bedroom, while the hand crafted furniture his father had made him was already waiting in it, and arranged the way he wanted, that was the only thing properly arranged. Boxes full of clothes and possessions and various knick-knacks collected over two decades in the service were stacked all over the place. The previous day hadn’t given him much of a chance to unpack and today wasn’t looking any better.

Timothy put a hand on one box in passing, pondering unpacking it for a moment but then discounted it, there was too much to do and if he unpacked one box he’d just be more annoyed with only having one done than he was now with none done. Instead he walked over to the most familiar piece of furniture he owned. The overstuffed blue recliner accepted him like an old friend just like it had when he was a baby and his father had held him in it, and when his father had held him in it, and on and on. The chair was at least two centuries old and a family heirloom, however Timothy knew that the upholstery had been redone too many times to count and he himself had rebuilt half the frame. A flick of his foot spun the chair to face the window that overlooked his bed and he looked out at the spacedock even though his thoughts were elsewhere.

He was very aware of the position he was in, the nascent FDF had plenty of enemies on the Federation Council, powerful opponents who were undoubtedly waiting for the least little slip up to call for its elimination. This deployment could make or break the Defense Force, if nothing happened if things were quiet then the deployment was useless, the questions would still be there, an answer to the question of the FDF’s existence was needed on this deployment. In a way heading to the Romulan Neutral Zone was a blessing, after the Scimitar incident and the near perfect silence from the Romulans since then the chances of this deployment being quiet and uneventful were practically nil.

The future of the FDF rested in the results of this deployment and it weighed on him mightily. If the FDF failed the Federation could wind up at the mercy of the next marauding power that came along and Timothy couldn’t let that happen, regardless of the cost he had to make sure that the FDF survived, it would mean the survival of the Federation.

“Mr. Luhrner.”

A soft beep from the comm system let him know that it had activated and put his page through to the ship’s first officer.

“Aye Captain?”

“Mr. Luhrner, I need you, Mr. Deekan, and the Senator in my ready room in fifteen.”

“Aye sir.”

The comm system faintly clicked off and Timothy returned to gazing out the window, his mind blessedly clear, he knew what he had to do; now he just had to do it. Besides, it would take three minutes for him to get to his ready room.

*********************
“Wow, look at this beast.”

A pair of long thin jaws snapped shut with a soft hoot. “It is almost a kilometer long.”

“With all that armor I bet it handles like a stuck graal.” A tall Cardassian girl said with her hands on her hips.

“With me at the helm it will not matter.” A firm stomp of one hind leg signaled her sauroid companion’s determination.

“I can’t believe they’d even let you on the bridge.”

All four of the Nileen’s eyes blinked in unison, a mannerism that Milana had learned meant the same as a Cardassian rolling them. “Well Milana Tuul, this is what happens when you graduate top of your class.”

“Top of the class in practicals, even I couldn’t help your book work.”

The short Nileen waved both his right arms down in a sweeping gesture. “I will learn what I need on the job; I know how to fly a ship.”

“Biggest thing you’ve ever flown is a Cheyenne; I would imagine this is slightly different.” Her Nileen companion’s exuberance never ceased to flummox her.

“No matter, that is what holodecks are for….”

“Among other things,” Milana said under her breath.

Villec did his best to ignore her comment, “…let us get aboard before morning shift, I have heard they are trying to leave early.”

The Cardassian girl and her Nileen friend quickly hustled to the gangway of the ship and headed aboard,

*********************

Johan, Deekan and Senator T’prin all filed into his ready room as Tim watched the stars stream past his view ports. "Please, have a seat," he said as he gestured towards the couch. "Thank you all for coming, there's something that everyone needs to be brought up to full speed on."

Senator T’prin’s eyebrow rose skeptically but she said nothing as Timothy rose from his seat and handed each of them a blank PADD before sitting back down and picking up his own. He thumbed a control on his desk terminal and each PADD lit up and requested a security clearance from its bearer.

"Computer, security level one." The doors to the bridge and to Tim's private turbo lift thudded mutely as physical locks inside them slid home. A faint electronic buzz filled the air. "As you can see you're about to be given a sensitive briefing, you'll need to unlock your PADDs," Tim said and then settled down to wait as they did.

In turn Jo, then the senator and finally Deekan each entered their Starfleet security codes and began to browse over some of what was presented. When Jo's eyes spied a familiar shape his gaze immediately snapped up to his superior.

"As you all probably realize this is a special weapon's briefing. Six years ago Voyager returned from the Gamma Quadrant, she came bearing gifts from 2404; transphasic torpedoes and ablative armor generators. Due to the way this technology was acquired Temporal Investigations immediately impounded all of it, stripping the ship of all this equipment. The power of these systems can't be overstated, the armor generators allowed an Intrepid class starship to withstand the full firepower of several dozen Borg cubes and a pair of these torpedoes were sufficient to destroy an entire Borg tactical cube. Because of this the FDF was interested."

"I still don't understand why TI let that happen; shouldn't they have stopped Admiral Janeway?" Jo asked.

"The violation happened in the Gamma quadrant, TI can't get out there to stop it," Timothy explained.

"Yeah but what about TI in 2404, who the hell fell asleep at the wheel there, then... eventually?"

Tim shook his head, "You read the same report I did, from all the usual TI-ese I think that since TI 2404 didn't pick it up TI 2377 didn't feel like they had to, that it was some kind of tacit acknowledgement that this was alright with TI 2404 and all versions of TI hence."

"I still don't see how that's not a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive," Jo said.

"I do not understand it either," Deekan admitted.

By some kind of unspoken agreement in the group everyone's eyes turned toward the Senator. "I am not aware of an answer sufficient for your questions," she said simply.

"Perhaps backlash from the Brittain?" Deekan asked. "They had five suicides, ten nervous breakdowns, and two thirds of the crew isn't even in Starfleet anymore. Maybe they didn't want to do that to another crew," the Capellan offered in his deep gravely voice.

Jo nodded, "TI doesn't usually have to play god, they just tidy up the pieces after someone else messes things up or tries to fix them, maybe they don't have the stomach for it. Though maybe the transfer of this technology is important to the timeline, we might need these torpedoes to stave off the wholesale destruction of the Federation.”

"Well aren’t you just full of happy thoughts. Whatever the reason, we're drifting, but I suspect that you two may be right. After negotiations with the office of Temporal Investigations and the Security Council, the FDF managed to secure authorization for a limited deployment of transphasic torpedoes to the FDF. Right now we have twenty four weapons aboard like all the Monsoons will carry, the Wolf 359s will all have twelve and each Paladin will be armed with four."

"There goes the TPD," Jo muttered.

Tim chose to ignore his subordinate's comment, he felt the same way but as commanding officer he didn't have the luxury of expressing that sentiment. "Pursuant of the terms struck between the Security Council, TI, and the FDF the weapons will only be used after all other weapons have proved ineffective in stopping a threat or if there is insufficient time for conventional weapons to prove effective. Their use requires the verbal authorization of the acting senior officer of the ship, the first officer and of the tactical officer, that's you Deekan."

"Understood sir." Deekan and Johan said.

"These weapons are not something we can just rely on; in fact we have to avoid their use if at all possible. Right now they're our trump cards against the Borg, we play them too often and they might figure out how to stop them, I can't emphasize enough how that can't happen. Use against more common threats is authorized but must be minimized; if word got out about these weapons it could be very bad for the diplomats."

"It would be prudent to mention that I voted against the deployment of these weapons, they are far too provoking for our local neighbors and could increase the threat we pose to the Borg, making us more... attractive, for assimilation," T'prin said.

"Regardless, we have them." Timothy said. "I can't stress enough how this can't be leaked, this information requires a level two security clearance and a pressing need to know. Even if someone has a level one clearance unless they need to know, you don't say anything. Deekan, you'll have to appoint a crew of weapons officers to be in charge of maintaining the weapons and you'll need to inform lieutenant commander Ulin of this when she arrives."

*****************

“It looks like you’re settling in well.”

The Emergency Medical Hologram, or Joe as he was starting to think of himself turned towards the other familiar voice on the ship. “About as well as can be expected I suppose. I haven’t had seven years to get things arranged.”

“Give it time,” Harry Kim said with a smile.

“It’s out of place now,” he said dryly.

“Oh that’s just because I told your nurses to keep moving things without telling you.”

The EMH raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Is there an actual medical reason for this intrusion or are you just trying to annoy me?”

Harry grinned boyishly. “Can it be both?”

“No.”

He chuckled, “So, how about the rest of the ship, enjoying being able to move around without your emitter?”

The Doctor set his PADD down on a cart and leaned back against one of the diagnostic beds, a mannerism he had learned in one of his many social experiments. “It’s interesting. Not having to worry about my emitter has certainly simplified things.”

“What about your quarters?”

“I don’t see the point honestly, I don’t have to sleep.”

“That’s not the point Doc,” Harry insisted, “it’s a place of your own where people won’t intrude on you.”

The hologram cupped his chin in his palm. “That would be nice,” he said while pointedly looking at his visitor. “I suppose I’ll have to replicate some knick-knacks to keep the place from seeming empty. Starfleet issue furniture is functional but not terribly decorative.”

“And it’ll get you out of sickbay, you have to be tired of looking at biobeds and hyposprays by now,” Harry added.

“While I don’t find the accoutrements of my profession objectionable as of yet, I do see your point.”

“And once you’re done you can have people drop by to take a look around, it’ll be fun.”

“And here I thought you were touting the privacy of my quarters.”

Harry’s smile refused to fade. “Come on Doc, you weren’t just turned on, you like socializing.”

The Doctor sighed and gave in with mock exasperation. “Fine, though I don’t know the protocol for having a house warming on a warship.”

******************

Timothy glanced up over his PADD and did his best not to stare or grimace, even though the newest members of his bridge crew made him want to do both. He despised having to deal with things like this early in the morning.

“Lieutenant Tuul reporting as ordered sir,” said the Cardassian girl.

“Lieutenant Villec Bissan reporting sir,” said her sauroid companion.

Timothy looked back down at the PADD and nodded, deliberately not making eye contact after their pronouncements or saying a word. He let the two of them stand there and stew for a bit, he was always curious to see how new crewmen handled a protracted silence. The little experiment worked equally well on new species he came across.

He wasn’t wasting his own time however as his PADD had the database on the Nileen pulled up and he was consulting it on what to expect from his new helmsman. The Nileen were a sauroid race, which at first glance looked very similar to the dromaeosaurs of Earth’s cretaceous period. However their similarities to a velociraptor or its ilk died almost immediately. The Nileen were hexapodal, having the expected two large hind legs but having four arms instead of two, a heavily built lower set, and a more delicate upper set. At one point in their history the lower set had been good for little else besides grabbing and ripping into prey but genetic engineering had given them enough fine motor control to be useful, though most Nileen still favored their upper set of arms for delicate work. They also lacked the expected claws on their hands and feet, claws the Nileen kept retracted at most times to better let them manipulate objects. Balancing the large upper body were a pair of side by side tails that were at least partially prehensile. The Nileen had four eyes, a forward pair more attuned to visible, human visible, light and UV with a pair higher up behind them and more to the sides adapted for the infra red. The Nileen used the front pair for tracking and hunting while the rear pair helped them scan their surroundings and keep track of what happened all around them. A flat lip covered most of their teeth and allowed them to speak English haltingly with a little help from an implanted voice modulator. According to the database a large portion of the Nileen’s native language was contained in the soft hoots, hisses, and growls they made in addition to conventional words, even body position and orientation had meanings beyond simple body language. The general consensus of the Nileen seemed to be that while English was great for doing things like describing a color, it was horribly imprecise and unwieldy for most anything else. Lieutenant Bissan was the first Nileen officer in Star Fleet and the first one to be assigned to a starship.

Lieutenant Tuul was another first, the first Cardassian officer in Star Fleet, the first intentional one anyways. Even though she was just another a academy graduate her file was thicker than Johan’s, and those were the parts he was authorized to see, and given the rather, intimate, nature of some of what his authorization allowed him to see he had trouble fathoming what could possibly be classified even higher. Apparently the Lieutenant’s grandparents had defected from the Cardassian Empire and had brought their daughter and grand-daughter with them when Milana was very young. Her mother hadn’t been able to adjust however and around the time Milana was seven her mother had stolen a shuttle and had last been seen running hard for the border. Milana had been on an early admissions fast-track prior to the war and in spite of the odds she had managed to join the academy only a few days after the final battle of Chintaka. The notes in her service jacket seemed to indicate that Starfleet intelligence had thought it would be easier to keep an eye on her if she was a cadet. She had surprised everyone by not just succeeding in the academy, but excelling, graduating in the top two percent of her class and earning herself her choice of assignments. With a spotless record and nothing at all turning up in any of the many intelligence probes on her Starfleet had no real choice but to follow its own protocol for high ranking graduates and honor her request for assignment to the FDF and the Typhoon in particular.

Lieutenant Bissan had been expected, Lieutenant Tuul had not. Timothy had intentionally requested that as many non-human crewmen be assigned to the Typhoon as possible, the current vogue in Starfleet was greater diversity in ships’ crews. Since the Titans had been designed with diverse crews in mind and the Monsoons still had all the requisite connections for accommodating strange habitation requirements he had thought it would be a good way to be seen as a team player. He hadn’t thought his request for non-human crewman would saddle him with a Cardassian.

The silence dragged on for several more minutes as Timothy mulled over his new navigator’s file and to his disappointment she was the one who broke it. “Captain…?”

“Lieutenant Bissan, you’re the first Nileen to gain a commission and a posting aboard a starship, congratulations.”

“It was no great accomplishment, any Nileen could, Nileen have no motivation to do so. Nile still has a great many things to teach the Nileen.”

Timothy nodded but said, “Learn to take a compliment Mr. Villec.”

“Yes Captain Timothy Hayes.”

“I see that you have yet to pilot anything larger than a Cheyenne.”

“That is correct.”

“Well Mr. Bissan, this is not a Cheyenne, or even a Garret, it’s a Monsoon class battlecruiser. According to my clock you’ve got just a bit over twelve hours until we’ll be ready to depart, I would suggest that you make the most of them.”

“Yes Captain Timothy Hayes.”

“Talk to Mr. Kim about what you’ll need, dismissed.”

The Nileen helmsman gave his best approximation of a salute, one hand over each eye, and turned sharply to exit. The wince on Timothy’s face must have been obvious as he watched the sauroid’s twin tails go whipping by within centimeters of prized possessions in his ready room before he disappeared through the door.

“Villec is really very careful about his tails…,” Milana began, tapering off as Timothy fixed her in his stare, “…sir.”

“Lieutenant Tuul…,” Timothy began, making a bit of a show out of flipping his PADD over to her record and consulting it, “…top of the class in your bookwork, but you slipped up a bit on your practicals, drug your whole ranking down.”

“With due respect sir, I had a rough start.”

“Your first two years at the Academy were rather rough.”

“Sir?”
Timothy held up the PADD, “According to your file, which is a great deal larger than even Commander Luhrner’s; your first two years at the academy were rather rough.”

“I’m not sure I understand sir, I had no disciplinary actions during my stay in the academy.” The Cardassian girl fidgeted where she stood, her slate gray skin flushing a bit darker.

Timothy smiled inwardly, he enjoyed pushing people to see where their limits were, and his new navigator’s innocence about how she was perceived, or her unwillingness to acknowledge it, would prove an excellent point to attack from. “This has nothing to do with official disciplinary actions Lieutenant.” He feigned disbelief, “Surely you know there was extra attention paid to you at the academy.”

She stood up a little straighter, her spine stiffening defensively. “I received the same treatment every cadet did sir.” Milana’s short bobbed hair bounced with her clipped defense.

“Come now, you can’t actually believe that.” Timothy paused waiting for her to respond, but she stood at attention, unwavering. ‘Defensive or indignant?’ he pondered. “You have to know you were monitored by Starfleet intelligence.” He saw a fire in her eye and her lips draw to thin black lines on her face. ‘Indignant,’ he decided.

“I was aware of no such monitoring.”

“Lieutenant, honestly, a Cardassian attempting to join Starfleet immediately after the Dominion War? Starfleet intelligence has already kept a close eye on the comings and goings of your grandparents and you, especially after your mother headed back across the line.”

“My mother wasn’t able to stand the way she was treated, the change in her station in life after the defection, sir.”

“Perhaps. But you have to see how Starfleet Intel would be interested in you, especially once you applied to the academy. They made sure you got in, if anything just to see what you’d do.”

There was a minute quiver in her voice, “I was under the impression that I was accepted to the academy based on my merits, sir.”

“Oh your merits were certainly good enough Lieutenant, Intel just made sure that nothing else held up your acceptance. I’m sorry to break it to you Ms. Tuul, but you’ve been living the last four or five years in a Petri dish.”

“I didn’t think the Federation treated its citizens like this, I thought I’d left this treatment behind twenty years ago.”

Timothy let his voice harden. “When the citizen is a defector from a hostile power who regularly raids our borders and tortures our citizens for the hell of it we’d be a tad bit lax not to keep a close eye on them wouldn’t we? We’d be downright foolish not to watch them like a hawk when their former home decides to side with the enemies who almost destroy us, wouldn’t we?”

“I’m Cardassian by biology sir; I’m a member of the Federation by choice.”

“I’m going to be brutally honest with you Lieutenant, there’s a very large bit of the Federation who’d love nothing more than to see you and yours thrown back across the border, and more than a few of them would like to see it done out an airlock. You’re coming aboard a ship where sixty percent of the crew served in the war, and where almost everyone knows someone who died in it.” Timothy leaned back and steepled his fingers. “Now I’m not telling you this to scare you, I’m not telling you this to run you off; I’m telling you this because I want to make sure your eyes are wide open Ms. Tuul. There are a lot of people watching you, most of which don’t wish you well. I hope there’s some tritanium in your spine because you’re going to need it.”Milana nodded hesitantly, “Yes sir.”

“Understand me Lieutenant, I expect one thing from you, get my ship where I want it. You do that and do it well and I’ll defend you against anyone, screw up, and I’ll let the hounds have you. Is that understood.”“Aye sir.”

“Good, now the same advice I gave your friend applies to you, I’d suggest you get very comfortable with this ship because tonight you’re plotting her and your first course, make sure it’s proper.”

“Yes sir,” she said as she turned towards the door.

“You weren’t dismissed Lieutenant,” Timothy said with an edge. Milana immediately returned to her previous position. “Take this,” he tossed his PADD with her service record on display, with the encrypted parts decoded, to her across his desk. “It makes for interesting reading, Intel was quite thorough. Now you’re dismissed.”

Milana quickly saluted and hurried out the door. Once the doors hissed shut behind her she glanced down at the PADD in her hand and the note stuck to the back of it. She unfolded the small piece of paper and blushed furiously, stuffing it in her pocket and shutting off the PADD display.

‘Exactly what do you do with two Orion animal women, a full bottle of Romulan ale, and a type 8 shuttle on a four day pass?’
Captain Hayes

*************************

Johan walked quickly down the familiar gray and tan corridors of the Typhoon. Contrary to the laid back image he tried to project his actual day was a constant juggling act of a hundred little details, and occasionally those details didn’t appreciate being juggled.

Bella Mavil didn’t appreciate being juggled.

Johan had taken a piece of advice his former first officer had given him right before he’d been promoted and become Hayes’ first officer. The older Trill woman had taken him aside a few days before he’d been dropped off at Starbase 1 to meet the Atlas.

“Johan, if you don’t pay attention to anything I say, and I’m sure you never have, pay attention to this. You’re about to become a first officer and run the show for some unsuspecting captain. Yes, running the show. Captains like to think they’re in charge but they’re not. It’s up to you to run the ship for him Johan, the Captain’s job is to use his ship as a tool to complete his mission, it’s your job to make sure that tool is sharp. Your captain should never have to worry about the day to day running of his ship, ever, that’s your job. If the captain has to worry about why ensign idiot and crewman dumbass don’t get along, you screwed up. If he has to wonder why no one ever seems to fix that power relay, you screwed up. If he has to decide how to discipline some lieutenant for being late to a duty shift you screwed up. Manage your captain Johan, keep them focused on their jobs. They all used to be first officers and they’re all tempted to try and take that job back over, never let them. Anticipate their needs and have them accommodated before they even ask, anticipate their orders and have the crew already moving that way. Keep their noses out of the day to day crap and let them just worry about the big picture.”

He could remember the first year of his cruise on the Atlas and sure enough, Hayes had tried to poke his nose into things like duty rosters and maintenance schedules but Johan had steered him away from them. Over the years they had formed an almost perfect team, in Johan’s estimation. He took care of the little stuff, and Timothy directed the ship. He still kept Hayes appraised of everything that went on in the ship, he had a detailed report on the captain’s desk every morning, that detailed everything that happened down to the littlest detail but he’d also trained Timothy to read it and for the most part ignore it, relying on him to tell him what he needed to know and deal with.

It bothered him to think that in a year he’d likely have a promotion forced on him whether he liked it or not. He knew he was overdue for one but he hated the idea of being forced off his friend and captain’s ship. He especially wasn’t fond of the idea of tossing Hayes to some new first officer, he knew Timothy well enough to know that he’d be driven mad by not having someone of his caliber around taking care of things. Maybe he could wrangle things to get Terzi promoted to first officer, Timothy had a soft spot for the little pixie so he’d be less likely to blow his stack if things weren’t just right for him.

Unfortunately this reporter was bound and determined to make herself a problem for the Captain and was doing her best to thwart his attempts to manage her and keep her from becoming something Hayes would have to deal with.
He turned the corner in the corridor and had to quickly side step to avoid plowing into Bella who had her head buried in a PADD.

“Ms. Mavil,” Johan exclaimed as he dodged her.

The mass of blonde curls whirled until her face appeared out of the forest. “Oh, Mr. Lanner, excuse me.”

Johan let the annoyance of her fumbling his name take root rather than stamping it down. She’d replaced her more professional blouse and pants with a light blue sundress short enough to show off a pair of legs that just wouldn’t quit and he needed something to keep his mind focused on his job. “Mr. Lurhner actually, good Austrian stock,” he said with a smile.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I know how annoying that can be.” She reached out and laid one hand on his shoulder.

‘Focus Johan,’ he thought. Had she not been so intent on turning into a problem for his captain, and likely the entirety of the former Atlas crew he would have been sorely tempted to violate Timothy’s order and work to see if Bella wouldn’t have objected to being violated as well. “That’s alright, is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, I was just going to the bridge to see Timothy.”

‘Jackpot,’ Johan thought as he fought to keep the annoyance off his face. She’d screwed up three times in one sentence, first by going to the bridge uninvited, second for referring to the Captain by his first name, and finally and gravest of all to him, she was going to talk to the Captain without clearing it with him first. Johan took his job seriously, and one facet of that was ensuring that Starfleet’s liberal ‘open door’ policy between captain and crew didn’t get out of hand by screening everyone who wanted to see the Captain and handling almost all of them without bothering the Captain. An ensign had pulled the same stunt this reporter was trying to and now he was in an EVA suit hanging onto the port warp nacelle with his bare hands degaussing the several hundred meter long structure with a micro-field adjuster. The crew seemed to get the gist of what he was trying to communicate. Unfortunately he couldn’t do the same or worse to her. “Perhaps I can help you out with what you need, the Captain is very busy getting ready for departure this evening.”

Bella gave Johan her most disarming smile. ‘You’re not going to manage me you stuffed shirt bureaucrat.’ “Oh, I don’t think so, I wanted to talk to Timothy in person.”

“Tomorrow might be better for the Captain’s schedule, I’d be happy to see about getting you in then.”

‘Which means not tomorrow either,’ Bella knew. She’d been around enough of the First Officer’s type to know that he’d try to punish her for upsetting his little world today by finding reasons she couldn’t see him tomorrow either. Under normal circumstances she would have just plowed right in guns blazing and forced the issue. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have been around for more than a day or so however, not a month or more. “Well if he’s going to be that busy, tomorrow then,” she said after appearing to consider his words for a moment.

“Just give me a call and I’ll see what can be done,” he said while offering her his most charming smile.

She matched his smile with her own, “You can bet I will.”

Johan watched as Bella turned and walked away. “You’re going to be a tremendous pain in my ass,” he muttered.

***********************

Cesina checked her PADD for the fifth time and grumbled, she had checked in with the Ops officer, a human named Harry, the moment she’d come aboard but for some reason the ship’s computer had no idea where her quarters were. A helpful crewman had taken her bags from her when her shuttle had docked with the station but where he’d taken them was a mystery to her. If the computer refused to acknowledge her as a crewmember then how did her porter know where to take her bags? The sixth check of her PADD confirmed that in the last ten seconds the computer hadn’t decided to stop being difficult and tell her where her quarters were. ‘At least I should be on the right deck,’ she thought, the turbo lift had dumped her off in the primary hull near the few sets of low ranking guest quarters the ship had when she’d asked to be taken to her cabin. With the computer not responding to her general directions she’d had to figure out where she wanted to go by deck and frame. On a new ship that had taken her a while. When she finally looked up out of her PADD she was surprised to see she wasn’t alone. Even more surprised to see that the woman approaching her was an Orion, a female Orion dressed in a Starfleet tactical uniform, dark gray all over, padded, and covered in pockets, but with the center zipper pulled down to the middle of her chest.

Peili chuckled softly when she saw the Andorian girl quickly stuff the PADD she’d been reading in a thigh pocket and did her best to look confident in where she was. Shifting her duffle bag to a more comfortable position on her shoulder she stopped just on the verge of too close for a new acquaintance and gave her best smile. “You look like you could use some help.”

The blue skinned woman sighed, “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” Peili said with a smile, trying to put her at ease.

Cesina’s antennae drooped in time with her shoulders. “The computer refuses to acknowledge that I’m one of the crew, consequently it won’t tell me where my quarters are, which makes me wonder how the porter from the starbase knew where to take my bags and I haven’t even seen him since I got on board.” She ran a hand through her silvery hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, my name’s Cesina Bul’ra, second officer of the ship if anyone will believe me.”

“Glad to meet you, my name’s Peili,” she said with an extended hand. “Ship’s security chief.” She politely left off that she already knew who Cesina was, having already gone through every member of the crew’s service records looking for anything she’d need to know later.

Cesina took the Orion’s green hand and was surprised when hers wasn’t shaken, but kissed. “Oh…, umm, no last name?”

Peili released Cesina’s hand and shrugged, “Where I’m from women don’t merit last names.”

“Oh, umm, I’m sorry.”Peili waved her hand, “Don’t be, not like you have anything to do with it, and I’m not there now am I?”

“I suppose not,” Cesina said as her antennae perked up just a little.

“Ok, let’s see about finding your room, I hear we’re shoving off soon, don’t wanna get stuck without a place to bunk right?”

***************

Lieutenant Commander Ulin did her best to not take off in the opposite direction when she saw the crewman coming up behind her. Binni knew that Lieutenant Fealst’rak wasn’t dangerous even though that primitive part of her brain still in charge of her fight or flight response told her that this monster was going to try and eat her or something even worse. Just like she was supposed to she’d read the crew briefing that had detailed the various species that would be serving on the Typhoon and when she’d gotten to the section on the Rurutic she’d desperately hoped that whichever of them would be serving would be serving somewhere she’d never have to come in contact with them. No luck. The lieutenant was going to be in charge of the Typhoon’s meager science department and would almost certainly be present at every major staff meeting.

Fealst’rak’s footsteps rattled the deck plates as his hooves thudded across them, the powerful gripping claws around them clattering down with each step. Thud-claclaclaclack, thud-claclaclaclack. When he stopped beside her he reached one six fingered hand out to tap the turbolift call button with a claw even though it was already lit up. Binni watched the hand come back to his side and tried not to thing about how easily it could wrap around her head, the long middle four fingers could probably curl around from her forehead to her neck and the thumbs could wrap around each side of her head. A shudder ran though her body and she tried to focus on something else, like the way the chameleoid had turned most of his body a dull deep black and just his chest plate Starfleet science’s blue. His head was molted green and black from the tips of his horned frill in the back to the feeding tendrils that obscured the razor sharp beak at the front. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her because of the polarized eyelids that protected his delicate eyes, the shimmering oil slicks gave no clue as to what his attention was on though she supposed he could see almost everything since the dull gray patches of his infra red sensing organs were spread over his head. She had almost calmed herself with thoughts of how it must look to be able to see 360 degrees in IR when the Rurutic shifted his second set of arms and Binni felt like prey all over again.

The set of arms that were above his manipulator ones and right behind his head were enormous, powerfully muscled upper and lower arms connected to a pair of grasping talons that when unfolded would curve back over the Fealst’rak’s shoulders and frame his head like a praying mantis’ arms. Two and a half meter killing claws tipped these arms, just ready to impale some hapless human with a shorter but just as wide half meter pair below them ready to cut the hapless victim in half. They weren’t really killing claws she knew, the Rurutic were an arboreal species and used their larger arm/claws as their primary method of moving through the canopy of their home world. While the lower part of the arms did look like giant claws and were in fact used to help bring down prey at times the Rurutic mostly used them to climb, the smaller flexible finger claws that lined the main ones allowed them tremendous grip when moving about the trees. Fealst’rak had quickly learned however that the normal carrying position of those arms, extended forward over his shoulders, tended to seem aggressive to most of the species in Starfleet. He wasn’t hunting of course but in order to put the small ones at ease and to make getting around a cramped starship easier he had just adopted the habit of keeping them folded and down at his sides where his uniform black color at most times helped them disappear. Of course, he still needed to loosen them up and stretch at times.

‘Be calm, be calm, be calm,’ Binni had to tell herself. ‘He’s just another sentient being, he’s an officer and your ship mate, calm down. There’s going to be more just like him in not too long.’ The turbolift arrived quickly and opened up, Binni immediately slipped into it, happy to not be sharing the space with the lieutenant, until he took a heavy step towards the turbolift. Binni didn’t know whether to scream in frustration at being stupid enough to think that Fealst’rak wouldn’t be getting on the turbolift he had also called for or terror at sharing an even smaller space with him. Two strides of his detigrade legs carried him in with her and he turned to face forward bringing his prehensile tail in with him. There was no clear dividing line between a Rurutic’s tail and body, their abdomens’ simply turned back and started to narrow, providing a thick powerful tail base that tapered down over the next two meters before flaring out into a wide diamond shaped pad at the back. The tail was prehensile which allowed them another powerful grip on the limbs and branches of their home environment and was strong enough to support their entire weight, something Binni was acutely aware of as it curled around the perimeter of the ‘lift, the diamond shaped tip right at her knees. “Officer’s quarters,” she said and the turbolift was off with a faint hum.

“Deck five, science labs.” Fealst’rak did his best not to take up the entire turbo lift but it wasn’t easy, most of the sentients in the Federation were just so tiny. He watched the human woman beside him try not to fidget but fail, he could sense her increased body heat, the electric signals surging through her muscles that compelled her to run and stay at the same time, and he could perceive the signals racing through her mind pooling in the place he had learned meant nervousness and even fear. He shifted his body a little to give her more space and moved his tail to wrap around his own feet. He could understand how they could be nervous around him, he easily out massed her at least nine to one, but the fear was just so odd. Surely humans understood that there was no point for a Rurutic to ever ingest on of them, their right handed amino acids and left handed sugars meant they would be as nutritious as the carpeting of the turbolift for a Rurutic, if not downright poisonous. Of course if he felt the urge to he could easily kill her, her frail little body wouldn’t last long against a species that had developed to hunt fast moving armored prey that weighed tons but there would be no point to it, no challenge in it. It was one more thing to learn about this new Federation his people were a part of.

The Rurutic were new to the Federation, having joined only a decade prior after making their first warp flight. The ambassadors that had arrived, Andorians and Betazoids if he recalled, had responded much the same way that this lieutenant commander was, but just like her they had tried to hide it and move on about their business. The Rurutic’s transition into the galaxy had not been pleasant, putting even the Humans to shame. While the little ground dwellers had managed to only kill off half their population the Rurutic had managed to kill off more than eighty percent of the population of their homeworld and irradiate all but one small continent in the north. The Rurutic that had made contact were citizens of a colony on one of Rurutic’s large arid moons. The colony had been working on warp flight before the final war and had been ignored by all three sides. The scientists and citizens of the colony had managed to avoid falling into factiousness, probably because everyone was equally devastated in the war, and had moved on with their experiments. They had surprised the other members of the Federation by how quickly they had acclimated to the new galaxy opened to them and Fealst’rak had graduated from the Academy only five years after they had joined the alliance.

His astrophysics instructors had been surprised to learn that his own knowledge on the subjects had equaled, and even surpassed in some places, their’s. Fresh from the academy he had been given charge of a deep field examination of the galactic core and had only recently finished. However rather than give him a teaching assignment so as to have plenty of time to analyze his data in peace they had informed him that both he and his small cadre of fellow scientists and assistants would be transferred to the Typhoon to serve as the core of the astrophysics department. Due to his commission Fealst’rak had become the default leader of the whole science department as well, if you could call the forty or so members of the Explorer Corp on board a department. The Defense Force had wanted to maintain some scientific presence on some of their larger ships and with the Explorer Corp already having plenty of trained scientists they had come to an agreement that deployed Explorer Corp scientists on Defense Force ships. He had asked for the reasoning behind his deployment and been told that he was here so that he could accumulate both command and starship experience and the Typhoon would likely be quiet and uneventful for a scientist giving him plenty of time to compile his data and write his papers. The neutral zone held no scientific mysteries that Fealst’rak was aware of, so in its own way this deployment would be almost a sabbatical for him.

“The ship…. very busy making preparations… to leave.”

The lieutenant’s halting speech drew Binni’s attention to itself as much as what he said. She knew that the Rurutic had an extremely precise way of putting some things, proper nouns were described extensively in their speech. Whoever had programmed the universal translator for them had decided to have it cut out a lot of that description, the end result was that Fealst’rak appeared to pause from time to time when he was speaking. He had probably included the ship’s registration number and commissioning data along with the exact preparations under way to get going. Even his name was an abbreviation as his true name included his matrilineal lineage, clutch number and rank within the clutch, for at least four generations. Proper nouns in Rurutic were very, very proper.

“Yes…,” she stammered, “yes we are. The captain is hoping to leave by this evening.”

“Ship… to depart in morning… would be preferable…, for good fortunes.”

“Oh? Is that a Rurutic custom?”

Faelst’rak bobbed his head, feeding tentacles writhing. Binni quickly found the turbolift control panel fascinating. “Yes, vessels… will be blessed by the rising sun… if launched with it.”

“Poetic,” Binni said.

“Yes, it is. Time is of the essence… in this case.”

***************

“Come on, hurry up and get that gear in the turbo lift. You don’t get that in there and I mean right now I swear I will toss your kit right off the shuttle to make room for it. Half an hour people, we’ve got half an hour to get this stuff loaded and over to the Typhoon so the can load it properly!”

“How’s the loading really going Marcos?”

“Just fine my spotted friend, just fine.” Marcos Hernandez showed his PADD to his fellow squadron leader. “Everything important is already over and loaded on big momma, we’re just packing up the little stuff it’s nice to have with us.”

Rilo Gulia took the PADD from his partner. “Typhoon still planning to leave dock at twenty one hundred?”

“Last I heard she was, I’d like to get us airborne by twenty thirty so we can be ready for her.”

Rilo thumbed through several manifest pages before passing it back to Marcos. “Sounds good to me. Tycho have anything to say about it?”

Marcos frowned at the mention of their CAG, “Danor always has something to say about it, ‘Why not twenty hundred for a little more margin?’ Because it takes us maybe three minutes to all get out of dock, that’s why. Why can’t he just give us an order? You want us in the sky at twenty hundred tell me, don’t question my decisions for the freaking hell of it.”

“Yvethan’s are mildly empathic, you might not want to think that way around him.”

“I didn’t say it to his face.”

“Think it hard enough and he’ll pick up the emotion. He’s probably just trying to get more info out of you, not to be difficult.”

“It’s still annoying,” one of the loading crews caught Marcos’ eye and he yelled across the bay. “What the hell is that? Put the boxes on the bottom of the pallet, not on top of the gas cylinders, are you trying to piss off the unloading crews?!”

“So how are the ships?” Rilo prodded. When it came to material and planning issues Marcos had the advantage, but Rilo was better at dealing with people. It meant things were busy for Marcos right now but down right peaceful for him.

“Alpha two two’s port lower just can’t stay lit, the mechanics tell me the initiators for the fusion chamber are desyncing and the fuel pellets aren’t getting burned. Of course to fix it they’ll have to rip out half the guts of the fighter so Banshee and Bubbles are just going to have to limp home on three tonight. Alpha four three’s cockpit heater either runs full blast or not at all so Ringer and Vega are relying on their suit’s, not a big issue for short hops but if we wanna pull any marathons that’ll have to get repaired. Beta one two’s repulsors are wonky so they’re not doing any precision flying in the shuttle bay but they can get outta here and in to roost just fine. I’d say we’re about ninety five percent over all.”

“Looks like all straight forward things to fix.”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem, can’t see any reason we wouldn’t be a hundred percent by the time we get to the border. How are the guys and girls?”

“Nothing odd, everyone’s just ready to get going.” Marcos said as he crossed his arms.

*******************

Captain Hayes walked into the conference room just a few minutes before 1500 to find his senior staff already present, even Johan. Most of them were seated but a few had gotten up to hold their discussions in the corners of the room either to spare everyone else the details or get close enough to hear one another over the buzz of voices. He quietly sat his coffee down on the table and took his seat, folding his hands over his chest and waiting for his staff to quiet down. Timothy shook his head no as he took a sip of his coffee when Johan looked his way. Slowly, in ones and twos the staff caught sight of their commanding officer and quieted down, taking their seats and waiting for him to speak.

“By all means, don’t let me interrupt.” Hayes took another sip of his coffee, ignoring the rest of the room and focusing on his first officer. “Mmm, I’ve been meaning to ask you, who makes this coffee Jo? I know it’s not you, it doesn’t taste like tar.”

“That’s called strong coffee sir, this stuff is brewed up by the cook.”

Hayes set his cup down, “Remind me to pay him a visit, this is good coffee.”
“It’s milk with a dash of coffee, but will do sir,” Johan said with a sly grin on his face.

Timothy turned to his left and his second officer. “You should try this, Johan might not have any taste but there’s still hope for you.”

Lt. Commander Bul’ra looked flustered with her antennae moving about erratically. “I will sir, thank you sir.”

“Good.” Hayes looked back up, glancing around to take in the room. “So, are we done?” He paused for a second. “Alright, let’s get started then.”

Johan gave a slight nod and once again Deekan started the meeting. “Sir, all torpedoes are aboard and loaded and all phaser banks have passed their final check outs and diagnostics. All my gunners are aboard and the weapon’s department is ready to depart.”

Lieutenant commander Ulin waited for her superior to finish. “As of thirteen hundred all defensive systems have passed their final inspections.” She paused to pick up her PADD and check her notes. “Short ranged defensive phasers all pass muster as well as the shield grid. We did note a power fluctuation in the port aft ventral second layer shield, it’s out of spec but nothing that would make me say it’s down.”

Terzi piped up from across the table and interjected. “It’s on the bitch list bossman, probably a fritzing relay or maybe a bad coupling somewhere, no biggie we’ll get it fixed.”

Timothy nodded. “Bump it to the top of the list, I don’t want our tactical systems to have issues.”

“That’s it sir,” Binni finished.

Peili propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Sir, all my marines are on board and our gear is stowed. We’re going to be starting familiarization drills tomorrow morning, alternating days of holodeck sims and real world drilling.”

“Real world?” his second officer asked.

Peili nodded. “Yes, we can only learn so much on the holodeck. We’ll be touring the ship and speaking with crewman all over to try and get a feel for things. The holodeck can tell us how the ship is laid out, not how it lives.”

“Interesting,” Cesina said.

“After that we’ll start to familiarize ourselves with the lay outs of the rest of the ships in the task force.”

“Very well, just be sure to coordinate holodeck time with Mr. Kim. Mr. Danor, report.”

Their Yvethan air group commander shook his frilled head from side to side, the wide expanse of bone and skin that projected back flushing dark blue in a way meant to ensure he had the attention of the group. When he began to speak his beaked mouth moved independently of his voice, like a badly dubbed movie. The bone and mouth structure of the Yvethans precluded any ability to ever speak English so his universal translator was designed to dampen out the sound of his voice to anyone but himself and to replace it with a rather pleasant if generic human voice. If you sat close enough you could pick up the chirping trill of his natural language but from Timothy’s vantage point is was just a disorienting clash of mouth movements and voice. “The bulk of the shuttles and small craft are aboard. The docking umbilical prevents loading the fighters or the runabouts, they will be coming aboard after we leave space dock. Their supplies are already aboard.”

“Make sure they get aboard smartly, I want to get to warp as quickly as possible.”

“Aye sir.”

The doctor perked up as Tycho finished his report. “Ah, my turn? Well, all medical supplies are aboard and accounted for so I see no reason to delay our departure.” His holographic face grew a bit dourer as he continued, “We have seen several injuries in sickbay since preparations for departure began, significantly more than would be attributed to normal wear and tear. I would advise a formal review of Starfleet safety protocols for the crew after departure.”

“I’ll let you handle that Doctor.”

The Doctor brightened immediately. “Thank you sir, I’ll set it up immediately.” Thankfully he either missed or ignored the faint Johan’s faint chuckle.

“Mr. Fealst’rak?”

The tentacles covering the Rurutic’s beak writhed as he talked. “My department… is aboard. Ready… for departure we… are.”

“How are the labs working for your team.”

“Working with instruments… that are not always present is odd, but convenient.”

“Hopefully this arrangement will work out for you.”

“I… am looking forward to this… deployment…”

“Good,” Timothy wasn’t sure how anyone in the science department could be looking forward to a deployment along a section of space that had been scanned, rescanned, and scanned again right down to the stray hydrogen atoms every day for the last two centuries but he didn’t question it, better that they start out in high spirits.

“Lieutenant Boritsolav?”

The ship’s young communications officer tried to tug her uniform jacket into position and sit up a bit straighter as she answered. “I have already informed Stardock of our intended departure and downloaded all the latest database updates and intelligence reports from their files. I’ve contacted DS3 and the rest of the task force to let them know we will be departing slightly ahead of our previous schedule.”

“Have you accommodated our guests?”

“Aye sir. The reporter is not very happy with the restrictions though.” Yumiko tried to look dignified with her hands clasped on the table in front of her, until a stray lock of purple hair drifted down in front of her face and ruined it, making her look just as young as she was. Her almond eyes crinkled in annoyance as she pushed the errant hairs up behind her ear.

“If she’s getting your face bump her up the command chain.” Timothy wanted to tell her to just cut her off for a little while if Bella was going to complain about what she got but the FDF needed to look good right now, which meant swallowing his pride in this instance.

“Aye sir.”

Seven of Nine didn’t wait to be called on, as soon as Yumiko finished she began. “All sensor systems have tested operational at ninety five percent efficient or better,” the former drone said in her brusque tone. “We will be conducting extensive sensor scans of several systems and nearby starship traffic during our journey to Deep Space Three in order to verify the sensor systems’ operation.” Seven of Nine continued to look Timothy’s way with her hands folded in front of her. Her eyes turned to the side to look at Harry, who didn’t seem to notice until the silence in the room dragged on for an awkward moment. He then looked up to see Seven staring at him and then towards the captain. His head snapped around to see Timothy taking a long drag from his coffee cup and looking pointedly at him.

“Oh, yes…umm,” he rapidly thumbed through pages on his PADD until he found what he was looking forward.

“When ever you feel up to it Mr. Kim.”

“Yes sir,” he said before clearing his throat. “I’ve cleared our departure with spacedock, we have clearance to depart as soon as we’re ready. The last few crates of supplies are being loaded and secured as we speak. There was a computer glitch in the personnel roster earlier today; some people were not registering as crew members or being allowed the proper access.”

“Did anyone get more access than they should?”

“Not that we can tell, no sir.”

Timothy sat his cup down and paused for a moment. “Just the same, Lieutenant Peili…”“Yes sir?”

“Work with Mr. Kim, tear that portion of the computer apart, look for anything you can find that might suggest something less benign than a ‘glitch’.”

“Aye sir,” they both answered. Harry continued on alone, “Aside from that all ops systems have checked out. Our duet/trit slush loading has finished along with the antimatter, our fuel tanks are topped off.”

Timothy looked at his chief engineer. The little Elysian was vibrating in her seat, her pent up energy and excitement plain to see only hours from taking her new engines out into deep space. “Terzi?”

“Impulse assemblies one and two both check out in spec. The reaction control system and auxiliary fusion reactors all passed muster. Power distribution is checked out to hundred and twenty five percent and all ancillary systems are in prime condition.”

Terzi seemed relieved to finish her report on those systems, they were her little nieces and nephews, ‘If Elysian’s have those,’ Timothy pondered, but her real children were her reactors.

“Warp core two passed its full power test this morning, a hundred and five percent without even a hiccup. Number one is going right now and since nothing’s exploded I’m guessing it’s good as well. After that we’ll run number three up and see if anything pops.”
“How long before we can get under way?”
“Three’s test will take about two hours, figure we’ll be done and ready to go by about eighteen hundred hours sir.”

Johan had a faint smile on his lips as Terzi finished. When the captain looked at him he just shrugged. “I’m good to go.”

Timothy sat his mug down and nodded. “Very well then, since everyone’s ready to go or will be shortly I see no reason to delay departure. Notify the ship, spacedock, and the fighter squadrons that we’ll be shooting for an eighteen hundred departure time.”

********************

“Reactor two on-line and released to general load, reactors one and three on stand-by. Impulse engines one and two on-line and under helm control. Reaction control system operational, secondary generators on stand-by. All propulsion systems are on-line and prepared for departure.”

“Very well Ms. Saral.”

“Primary umbilicals one through seven and eleven through twenty three are detached, eight, nine, and ten securing… detached, umbilical gantries retracting. All gangways and turbolift connections released. All stations reporting in secured for departure,” Harry reported.

“All sensors operational and in passive mode, prepared to engage active once we leave spacedock…”

Timothy relaxed in his chair, enjoying the deep, subsonic thrum of his ship preparing to leave. All around him his officers chimed in with her readiness and theirs, each one a step closer to getting his ship out into space. In a moment of mirth he reached over to his own control console and tapped in his orders, the massive viewscreen that dominated the entire forward bulkhead and showed the interior of the space dock appeared to melt, its top extending up to the ceiling overhead and showing the long arch of the dock and the central spire they were docked to. It was as if a giant had peeled back the roof. He heard a few of the bridge crew gasp. After all what was the point of having holoemitters everywhere if you couldn’t play with them a little?

“Most impressive captain,” T’prin said from the seat at his left.

“The bridge can get a little claustrophobic at times.” Over his shoulder he could see Cessina and Bella Mavil standing beside the gunnery stations behind him. His second officer had given up her seat to the Senator but seemed to be using one of stations to keep herself in the loop.

“Show off,” Johan muttered. “All systems and stations ready for departure sir,” he said loud enough to carry around the bridge.

“Very well then, Mr. Bisaan, take us out, smartly.”

“Aye sir.” The Nileen’s arms became a blur of motion as all four of them started to work his control panels far faster than a human would have. “Mooring tractors on and holding, docking clamps released and retracting,” The ship shivered as the clamps released her with a dull thump that echoed through her frame. “Mooring tractors released, the ship is free.”

The view before them shuddered somewhat as the spacedock gave up her last grip on the ship. Timothy could just catch Bella gripping the railing harder as the Typhoon’s structure moaned as she came from free from the dock for the first time in months.

“Port drift, three meters per second,” Villec said as he pulsed the ship’s thrusters.

“Ten meters clearance,” Milana called out, helping her friend maneuver the ship. “Twenty. Thirty. Clear to maneuver.”

“Canceling drift, ahead ten meters per second.”

“Five hundred to the channel,” Milana said.

Timothy flipped his display to the channel of one the spacedock’s cameras, watching his ship slip from her berth from afar, her graceful lines picking up speed as she shed the clunky confines of her nest.

“Down on the bow, five meters per second.”

Timothy looked up at his helmsmen, surprised at the direction but allowing his new crewman to take control. It would make a good exercise to see what he did. With a few more commands he added the view from the spacedock’s tracking cameras to one side of the view screen. He sat back to appreciate the view as the ship left dock with quite a bit more flair than was strictly regulation.

“Ten meters clearance on the starboard nacelle.”

“Of this I am aware, coming starboard, ahead fifteen meters per second.”

A smile crept onto Timothy’s face as his ships swung below her own gantry and just above the ship’s below, pitching through an opening between the clutter and accelerating into the channel, cutting the corner off the turn.

Milana glanced over at her friend, “Channel in one hundred meters.”

“Canceling all vectors but forward, twenty meters per second.”

“Sir,” Yumiko piped up from her station, “the harbor master is hailing, he’s demanding that we slow and assume a standard dock departure plan.”

“Acknowledge it,” Timothy replied, but gave no orders to his own crew. Ships and dock structures slid by on either side as the ship moved out. In the distance he could see the great space doors trundling open as they approached the turn towards them. With a deft hand Villec spun the ship to port quickly, making the sharp turn and lining them up dead center in the exit way.

“In the channel, five thousand to outer doors.”

Villec’s claws whipped across his controls, “Full ahead thrusters, two hundred meters per second.”

In a handful of seconds the ship slipped between the slabs of duranium that made up the spacedock’s doors and out into open space.

“We’re clear of spacedock and in the departure channel.”

“Very well Ms. Tuul, Lieutenant Bisaan take us out on thrusters until all craft have been recovered then go to impulse.”

**********************

“There she is!”

“Roger that Bravo one three,” Marcos said. “Let’s get it home people.” The giant battlecruiser slipped between the doors of the spacedock and headed out into space, she was moving quickly, relatively, and Marcos didn’t want to waste anytime getting aboard.

“Starpalace this is Galahad six, requesting permission to land.”

“Galahad six, Starpalace, permission granted.”

Marcos flipped back over to his squadron’s general frequencies. “Alright everyone out of the pool, trashmovers in first then Bravo and last Alpha. Take it in pairs and let’s get a move on.”

While the first pair of large runabouts lined up and slid into the ship’s shuttle bay the rest of the fighters took up station high and behind the ship, waiting their turn.

“Lovely view, ain’t it?” Hound, his backseat weapons officer asked.

Marcos grinned, he’d worked his way up as a combat shuttle pilot, struggling to stay alive in the relatively fragile and lumbering ships even though they’d been built for fighting. Now he was at the controls of a real fighter, one that could out shoot, out run, and out last anything he’d ever flown before and he was getting to take it on a cruise aboard the biggest toughest ship in the fleet. ‘No more Dominion War disasters,’ he thought to himself. “That it is, that it is.”

****************************

“Ahead one quarter impulse.”

Timothy was becoming quite pleased with his helmsman, rather than wait for his Captain to give him the order again he had just taken the initiative and gone to impulse as soon as Tycho had reported the last fighter was aboard.

“We’re in the lane, two point three million kilometers till we’re clear.”

Timothy wait for a moment before asking, “Madam Senator?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you would join me for dinner tomorrow evening.”

The Senator paused for a moment to consider before replying, “Thank you captain, I will join you…”

“Excellent I’ll make…”

“…and perhaps Ms. Mavil will join us?”

Only three years of having to choke down his real opinion when dealing with reporters allowed him to keep a straight face even as felt a sudden overwhelming urge to throw the Senator off his ship. “Of course, it will be a pleasure.” Timothy turned his head and gave the reporter a smile.

Bella smiled back sweetly. “I look forward to it.”

“I’ll have Lieutenant Bell get to you with the particulars.”

“Captain, we’re coming up on the outer buoys.”

“Very well, lay in a course for Starbase Three, warp seven.”

Milana checked her figures over again quickly before committing the ship to her course. “Aye sir, course laid in,” she said, hoping the tension in her voice wasn’t evident. The consequences of screwing up the course now made the reprimand she would get in the academy for a bad one look inviting.

“Engage.”

========================= ===================================

Dramatis Personae

Crew, U.S.S. Typhoon NCC-79853

Timothy Hayes, Fleet Captain, Commander 1st Task Force of the 17th Fleet, Male Human
Commanded the U.S.S. Atlas during the Dominion War, transferred into the Federation Defense Force immediately after its establishment, given command of the Typhoon and the 1st TF soon after.

Johan Luhrner, Commander, Male Human
1st Officer of the Atlas during the Dominion War, 1st officer of the Typhoon

Cesina Bul’ra, Lt. Commander, Female Andorian
Lieutenant aboard the U.S.S Galaxy, 2nd Officer of the Typhoon

Terzi Del, Commander, Female Elysian
Chief Engineer of the Atlas during the Dominion War, Chief Engineer of the Typhoon

Deekan Braal, Commander, Male Capellan
Security Officer then Tactical Officer of the Atlas during the Dominion War, Chief Tactical Officer of the Typhoon

Peili, Lt. Commander, Female Orion
Lieutenant in charge of the defense of a border station during the Dominion War, Chief Security Officer of the Typhoon

Harry Kim, Commander, Male Human
Operations Officer of the U.S.S. Voyager, Operations Officer of the Typhoon

EMH (Joe), Commander, Hologram
Chief Medical Officer of the Voyager, Chief Medical Officer of the Typhoon

7 of 9, Lieutenant, Human/Borg Female
Served on U.S.S. Voyager, Chief Sensors Officer of the Typhoon

Riway daughter of Jaheel, Lt. Commander, Female Si’rak
Ensign on the Atlas, 1st Operations Officer of the Typhoon

Binni Ulin, Lt. Commander, Female Human
Lieutenant on the U.S.S. Lelander, Defense Officer of the Typhoon

Villec Bisaan, Lieutenant, Male Nileen
Starfleet Academy Cadet, Helmsman of the Typhoon

Milana Tuul, Lieutenant, Cardassian Female
Starfleet Academy Cadet, Navigator of the Typhoon

Saral, Lt. Commander, Female Vulcan
Asst. Chief Engineer of the Typhoon

Fealst’rak, Lieutenant, Rurutic Male
Headed a research project using a space telescope to study the galactic core, Chief Science Officer of the Typhoon

Others

T’prin, Senator, Vulcan Female
Federation senator and chief opponent of the FDF

Solin, Aide, Vulcan Male
Senator T’prin’s personal assistant

Bella Mavil, Reporter, Human Female
United News reporter on assignment aboard the Typhoon

===========================================

Author’s Notes

I’ve been working on this for over a year, on and off mostly. It’s good to finally have it done.

The FDF is completely my own idea, I’m sure that some people will throw a hissy fit about it. Honestly Star Fleet already has many aspects of the military, from their crews to the fact that the ships are in fact armed. All this does is pull the military aspects out of Star Fleet and condense it in a much smaller sub-organization.

The creation of the FDF is set shortly after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The Federation has finally hit its limit on the number to times it was willing to almost be annihilated and decided to do something about it.

Most of the characters are entirely my own creations, I’m only reusing Harry, the Doctor, 7 of 9, and Janeway. I can’t see the DS9 crew signing up for another go in the military and TNG crew is mostly all spoken for.

When I started writing this the only thing we knew about the Titan class explorers was that they were going to be the next great exploration ships of Star Fleet. Given that so far the progression had been to ever larger ships I figured that trend would continue and that the Titans would be very large ships. I was wrong. The Titans are actually being described as much smaller vessels, more Excelsior sized I believe.

I drew a lot of inspiration for this work from the new Titan series of books. I highly recommend that you go and read them, very, very, very good stuff.