Star Trek

Reflections On Refits

Commodore Russell's demeanor changed instantly as Shuttlepod 8 rounded the decrepit corpse of another of the salvage yard's dead starships and came into full view of Utopia Plantia's most famous long-term resident, the USS Katori. The Galaxy-class ship had not weathered her long slumber in space well. Her scarred secondary hull was torn open to the cold. Her once brilliant nacelles were dull and lifeless. The ejection hatch for the warp core was still gaping open, showing that the heart of the ship had been long abandoned.

For sixteen years, she had been drifting in the darkness, her fate uncertain and her pedigree forgotten.

Russell had difficulty looking at her.

"Holding position at forty-seven-point-three, sir," the ensign at the controls of the shuttle reported.

Russell did not even nod in acknowledgment. His dull blue eyes searched every curve of the once-regal ship, avoiding the places where bulkheads were snarled and twisted and the innards of the ship could be seen. As an engineer, this would be the natural beginning to his long task, but he was too emotional to operate normally. Too much of his memory clung to the days when he saw the pristine hull of the ship and the countless windows alight with life. For three years, the ship had been his home and though a relatively short time in his career, he had fostered more important memories on her than any subsequent assignment.

He did not know many people who could not feel the same after walking the corridors of a Galaxy-classstarship as their first space assignment.

"They really did a number on her," he said, finally finding his voice and defeating his stiff posture.

The ensign looked from him to the ship, betraying a far cooler reaction to the sight. "Yes, sir. If I remember correctly from the textbooks, she was damaged in Operation Return and has been here ever since," she stated, as if being quizzed in a class at the Academy.

Russell shot her a dry glance, feeling old at the fact she was referring to those facts out of a textbook. He imagined the young Andorian woman was probably in grade school when the Federation was at war with the Dominion and the six hundred and eighty-four people were lost from the Katori. To her, the ship was just another wreck floating hopelessly through time and space, only notable for being the only Galaxy-class still floating in the salvage depot. He could not really blame her, as she had never seen the ship in her prime and could not understand that one could witness a dozen Galaxy-classstarships, yet see only one Katori.

As his attention settled back to the ship, he finally let his eyes fall onto the extensive scarring across the hull and his hands clamped tightly around the PADD that contained his orders from Admiral Tapscott. Her cruel fate was about to broken and his apprehension began to unwind.

When he was finished, there would be no other ship like her in the whole of Starfleet.

"Take us back to the dock, Ensign."

"How did she look, Konrad?" Admiral Tapscott asked cordially as Russell sat down in front of his desk.

Russell frowned. "She's a wreck, sir."

Tapscott laughed. It was just like him to state the obvious. "That she is. You have no idea how hard it's been to keep the wolves away from her. Sixteen years and no less than sixteen attempts at tearing her apart for scrap. I've had to call in more than a few favors to keep her in one piece," he recalled, obviously impressed at his own ability to hold a starship in his hands.

"Saying she's in one piece is generous, Admiral. The saucer is structurally intact, but if it wasn't for the changes you're proposing, the drive section would be unsalvageable," Russell remarked, looking over detailed schematics of the damaged ship, and the extensive list of modifications that were to be integrated into her. "It's like the Jem'Hadar used her for target practice."

Tapscott was studying his adjunct closely, watching the mixture of remorse, anger and excitement wash over the younger man's face. At sixty-two years old, he had seen many officers come and go through his office, but few interested him as much as Konrad Russell. The man was one of the youngest flag officers in the fleet, a brilliant engineer and possibly the best Parrises-Squares player he had ever known. He had spent almost as much time maneuvering the man into his office as he had keeping the Katori on the books, but he knew that both endeavors would soon come to fruit and that all of his patience and political capital would soon pay off.

It was why he could spare the moment to relish his junior officer's wash of emotions, knowing that each one would refine the product he would soon be selling to Starfleet Command.

"You're saying something is impossible for the "Wrench of Starfleet?" he said, purposely baiting his ego.

Russell appeared flustered a moment, looking up with a stiff back. Seeing the amused look in Tapscott's eyes, he soon relaxed a bit and snorted at his own reaction. "Sorry, sir. It was a little disturbing to see her like that," he admitted, then gingerly slipped the PADD onto the admiral's desk. "She'll be in the docking rings by tomorrow morning with feet on the deck by Thursday. Commander Util is already taking care of it," he said confidently.

The expression on Tapscott's face darkened slightly. "Are you still dragging that Vulcan around with you? Don't you think it's about time to get a new assistant?"

"I've had no finer officer than Util, sir. In fact, I plan on putting her in for captain once the Katori is ready to put to trials. Every flagship needs a good captain, you've always said," he said steadily. The older admiral was visibly disturbed by this, though Russell had fully expected that.

"You don't approve?"

Tapscott sighed heavily. "There is no more important position than the captain of your flagship. Especially this ship. Do you really feel she's ready?"

"As confident as I am in bringing the Katori out of the ashes," he replied.

There was no doubting the confidence in his eyes, and Tapscott had long discovered to trust the younger man's judgment, even when he did not agree with it. He had also discovered the benefit in having contradictory opinions on his staff, something than many other admirals in the fleet had yet to realize. It had led him to his prominent position as Director of Advanced Technologies and put him in the position to give Starfleet the tools to protect the Federation from all that would do it harm.

The Katori would be a huge step in that.

"Let's do this one step at a time." Tapscott said as he rose, confident in leaving the project in Russell's hands. The younger officer rose as well. "My shuttle is departing in an hour and I have some hands to shake before I leave. Your first project review is in six months. Let's see how she looks then before we start deciding who's going to fly her to the stars."

"Yes, sir."

Tapscott took one last look around the office, noticing the schematics and proposals littered about, and he felt disappointed that he would not be around to see the ship taking shape. But he had long resigned himself to leave production to the young and wait for the results, despite the fact that went against every fiber of his being. "Well, Konrad," he said, stepping around to him and stretching his hand out, "The desk is yours. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir. I'll look forward to giving you your first tour six months from now," he responded, shaking his hand firmly. Tapscott took one last look at him, then patted him on the shoulder softly before disappearing through the door.

"What have you got, Commander?"

Commodore Russell stood impatiently at the control pod overlooking the skeletal form of the Katori, his eyes darting back and forth from the ship to the woman who was busy orchestrating a number of technicians in their attempt to spark life into it. The Vulcan woman appeared annoyed, in spite of her stoic face and traditional abandonment of emotional discourse. She was striking in her blue uniform and wore her hair longer than most Vulcan women. Though looking very much younger, she was actually more than twenty years older than him, being roughly the same age as Admiral Tapscott, though her Vulcan physiology shielded her from the passage of time. It was often a point of entertainment for Russell, though she was often oblivious of his very human humor. But there was no denying her capabilities, and like a hawk, she watched every move and every display, trying to interpret the information and find the problem from every blinking light in the room.

She did not answer.

"Commander Util?" Russell repeated, now annoyed himself.

The Vulcan looked over, as if he had broken her spell. "Nothing yet, Commodore. The new warp core is not responding to the initialization commands and the safeties will not release," she replied, analytical as always.

"Ah huh," Russell replied. Turning on his heel, he walked over to the large display of the ship, looking at the power flow and system diagnostics. Scanning every corner of the display, he ran his fingers across his lips and scowled, annoyed she would be so stubborn after all of the work they had put into her. But he also sympathized, for the ship had been beaten and forgotten for many years, so he was not so surprised that she was a little reluctant to wake up.

"Come on, girl. Don't you want to smile for me?" he muttered to himself, running a finger along the lines of the power systems to try and find the issue.

Commander Util approached him, quirking an eyebrow as his unusual behavior. "I find it unlikely that any outcome to these start-up procedures will involve the ship 'smiling' at you, Commodore," she remarked, which drew a laugh from him.

"You might be surprised, Commander. I think the old girl might…" he began, then stopped his finger over a part of the display and punched some commands into the pad. A section of the display that had been red flashed over to green and the hulk began to come to life. Exterior lights began to burn to life across the scorched hull, flashes of sparks and light coughed from the areas still exposed to space, and a dull glow filled the lines the two nacelles.

Most significantly, a bright fan of light revived the dark letters of the ship's name and registry number across the front of the saucer.

The USS Katori came to life once more.

"Surprise you," Russell finished, his smile as bright as the lights on the hull.

Commander Util's reaction was far more muted as she walked over the technicians, reading over their shoulders. "Power levels are holding and the warp core is stable. There are several power fluctuations in the EPS conduits and the new computer core is showing an interface issue with several core systems," she reported.

Russell's eyes did not leave the ship. "That's not unusual for a total power system and computer refit. Let's get those systems online, Util. I want to be standing on the bridge by eighteen-hundred hours," he ordered, then walked quickly out of the control room.

Util watched him leave, somewhat intrigued by his childish behavior but also perplexed by how much emotion he was displaying concerning the damaged ship. She had served on his staff for over two years, but never saw him as anxious about something as he was about this ship. The human attachment to inanimate objects was something she had never understood, especially their tendency to view ships as living creatures. All she knew was that the ship and the project were very important to him, so much that she could tell he was not sleeping or eating sufficiently, and her cautionary suggestions seemed to get lost in the fervor of his work.

Her concern for him was yet another perplexing matter.

After a spate of safety checks, system's diagnostics and unrelenting anxiety, the first living beings not shrouded in thick EVA suits stepped onto the bridge of the Katori. Russell was reverent in his footsteps, looking over the still-scarred panels and flooring of the once-regal bridge. As it had been since entering the ghost ship, a strange, acrid smell stung his nostrils, not like the dusty air of a long-abandoned house, but rather the air of a tomb, where no living thing had crept for an eternity. The ship was still slightly cold, as if the walls still remembered the chill of space. Only half of the displays on the bridge functioned and the lighting was just enough to be eclipsed by the breach in the dome, revealing the bright work lights outside of the ship leaking in, and the stars barely visible beyond.

With Commander Util and other technicians filing in behind, the bridge became alive once more, but Russell was moving out of time, scanning it with younger eyes and a racing heart. He did not go to the captain's chair, but rather to an engineering station along the back wall, one that was not working. The man rested his hand on the chair and felt his lips fighting a smile and frown at the same.

He stood there for a long time.

Commander Util approached him, but said nothing. Her presence seemed to break him from his trance. "This was my station as a Lieutenant. Bridge duty in my first year on board. I volunteered every chance I got," he reminisced. Util remained silent. "I could run a warp core diagnostic with my eyes closed from here. You could feel the pulse of the ship through this panel." The saddest part for him was that the station was not working and that he could not feel that same pulse now, but also that he was no longer the person who would sit at the station.

Uncomfortably, he turned and walked to the crescent rail that framed the command station. Running his hand down the splintered railing, he approached the captain's chair, still hanging broken on its base. He went to place his hand on it, but hesitated. A sad look was in his eyes.

"I believe the entire bridge crew was killed, including Captain Anders and Commander Telnok," Util stated, almost like a computer reading out an inquiry on history.

"I didn't know the captain personally, but I've haven't served with many finer. Commander Telnok…" Russell began, deliberately avoiding the XO's station next to him with a look of remorse in his eyes. "He was a good man." Looking out over the bridge, he felt a strange guilt at not being one of the names on the casualty list. If it had not been for Telnok pushing him to transfer back to Starfleet Operations on Earth, he might have died at his station with everyone else, something that brought about a strange resentment of his mentor.

It was a surreal feeling.

"I'll make her fly again..."

A technician approached Commander Util and handed her a PADD, which she studied before passing it along. "The ready room was remarkably undamaged and can be used as you see fit, Commodore."

Russell took the PADD and smiled, feeling like he could finally begin. Watching the ship being torn to pieces and rebuilt from the docking ring had felt like building a ship in a bottle, so being able to stand on the deck plates and hear the distant, almost indiscernible hum of the warp core energized him like nothing he had felt in years. "I'm transferring my office, Util. I'll oversee the refit from here," he announced. With no chance for objection, he headed straight into the ready room off the side of the bridge, where he would now watch the ship take shape around him.

"You never cease to amaze me, Konrad. I could barely believe it when I saw her," Admiral Tapscott said as he sat across from the desk in the Katori's ready room. The lighting was bright and the carpeting was new, along with a total redesign of the room with a large engineering display near the desk with a schematic of the ship displayed prominently. "You say you're three weeks ahead of schedule?"

"Yes, sir. The integration is going smoother than we planned and we'll begin start-up procedures on the third nacelle within the week," Russell explained as he sat behind his desk, watching the smile spread over the other man's face.

"Outstanding. Although, I'm a bit curious why you chose a different nacelle design. Surely there's a matching one somewhere in the depot," Tapscott noted as he settled into his chair.

Russell frowned. "With the sort of experiments we'll be doing, I needed a more modular design than the standard Galaxy nacelle. I'm more interested in function than aesthetics," he explained.

Instantly, the older man could see that a mismatched nacelle raised above the drive section was the least of Russell's concerns, as there was a guilty tablet clutched tightly in his hands and an apprehensive look in his eyes. That was not unexpected, considering the latest list of technology upgrades that had been slated for the Katori. It was the fundamental list of upgrades he had imagined, but knew his younger adjunct would have problems with. "Is there something on your mind?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Russell looked visibly disturbed.

Tapscott sighed and settled heavily into his chair. "Always. Let's hear it."

"What is the Katori to you?" he asked sharply.

"I don't follow."

Russell rose in agitation and looked at the schematic of the ship, his eyes falling on the third nacelle, among other changes to the traditional design. "This is a Galaxy-class starship, designed to explore the galaxy. She's supposed to be charting unknown regions of space and going to new worlds. She's supposed to be expanding the limits of our understanding of warp fields and how to see the universe around us, so why are we arming her like a warship?" he asked as he turned, sliding the list of weapon's upgrades across to him. "High-capacity phaser banks, transphasic torpedo launchers, proposed integration of a cloaking device. And that spinal phaser bank on the ventral saucer? Do you want me to refit a starship or construct a battleship?" he said, not bothering to hide his emotions.

Tapscott looked up at him dryly.

"Admiral, a forty-percent hull increase in the neck of the ship to accommodate all of this hardware means you had always planned for it, even though they were not on the final design I signed off on. So again I ask you, what is the Katori to you?" Russell once again demanded.

"The salvation of the Galaxy-classstarship," he answered simply. His junior officer was apparently not appeased by that, but he knew this conversation had been long-coming. "Forty years ago, the Galaxy was the crowning achievement of Starfleet development. Big enough to go anywhere and do all of those wonderful things you've described. But what's happened in the past forty years? The Borg. The Dominion. The Klingons. All of these lethal enemies have challenged us and threatened us and taken away our loved ones. Our biggest and best is not good enough anymore. The Galaxy isn't good enough anymore."

"But you can't change the design of a ship without fundamentally changing her nature!" Russell refuted.

"What is her fundamental nature? You say to explore and expand, but no ship leaves spacedock without a phaser bank or two. Exploration requires risk and risk must be negated by strength," Tapscott replied.

"The designers of the ship did not intend her to be a show of strength. They intended her to be a show of hope. To arm her in such a way is…"

"Necessary." Tapscott interrupted, remaining cool and calm in the face of his flustered adjunct. "With projects like Odyssey on the books, Starfleet has already conceded that to defend the Federation, we need bigger and stronger starships. I personally don't want to see the Galaxy left behind." Rising from his chair, he walked over to the schematic as well, still admiring the lines of the ship even as he was intent upon changing them. "With a long-life spaceframe and this kind of power infrastructure, how can we not make the Katori into a ship that can defend herself, and the Federation?"

The troubled brow of Russell furrowed as he listened to the justification. To him, the ship had always been a symbol of Starfleet's dedication to peaceful exploration of the stars, even if he had to concede that no starship went into the dark without a light. It was the extent that he wanted to change the ship that bothered him, so much that the logic behind it seemed vile. "Aren't we betraying everything the ship was designed for?"

"No," Tapscott replied powerfully, facing him with his shoulders squared and his eyes strong. "You can take the most potent battleship ever put to the stars, capable of devouring anything she comes across, and ultimately her nature is determined by the men and women that serve aboard her, and the captain that sits at her command. That is why I can authorize these changes without a moment of regret, Konrad. Because I know that a Starfleet captain will be sitting in that chair and fulfilling the fundamental principles of Starfleet and the Federation, regardless of how many torpedoes they have under their finger. A thousand phaser banks, muted by one noble voice."

"That is what this ship means to me. Redoubtable capacity tempered by infallible duty."

Russell digested those words in silence, staring at the older man. Much of what he said made sense, but there was an underlying fear that they would start down a path that they could not easily backtrack from. Designing ships for battle was no new idea, as the Defiant and Prometheus were essential classes to the security of the Federation. But to repurpose Starfleet's flagship class meant so much more to him.

It was like changing Starfleet itself.

"So what's next? Are you going to propose these changes to all active-duty ships in the fleet?" Russell asked, still showing his great discomfort.

Tapscott showed a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. "The Essex is the next on the list. Your ship will integrate these technologies and mature them, and my ship will put them into a working Galaxy-class ship. I plan on having three nacelles that match, however," he said, trying to lighten the air between them.

Russell sighed with a bit of a smile showing, dropping his head to the overwhelming argument put against him. A part of him had suspected such radical changes when the Galaxy-X project was first proposed to him, but his own excitement and the engineering challenge had put blinders on him to the obvious direction the project was going. It was true that even now, starships were refitted with more powerful weapons and shields, and that there was no official red line that determined how much was too much. But there was still the nagging feeling that his beloved Katori, the first starship he ever served on, would birth some terrible monster from her new form, and that all of their justifications and rationalizations would never bring her back. And he feared that that monster would soon infect all of her sisters, turning the once-gallant explorer of the stars into nothing more than a quaint memory from a simpler time.

On the bridge of the Katori, Commodore Russell sat in the captain's chair looking over the latest diagnostics of the refit. Months and months of molding the ship had brought her weeks away from her first trip around the solar system, marked with fanfare and media attention rivaling the first time the USS Galaxy made the same stroll. She was a markedly different beast than the lifeless hulk that had been left floating around Mars, forgotten and alone. Her new armor shone brightly against the distant light of Sol. Her nacelles burned brightly with the most powerful warp core ever fielded by Starfleet. Her impressive display of armament was a statement to those powers that would undoubtedly be watching with keen interest as the iconic ship once again prowled the stars.

There was so much to do in the next few weeks that he was glad to haunt a quiet bridge for a few hours between work shifts. He was still not comfortable with everything thrown into the ship in the last few months, and his arguments with Admiral Tapscott had never subsided, but it was the breadth of those arguments that gave him enough comfort to see the project through. The one point that stuck with him was Tapscott's point that no matter the form of the starship, the heart was the people who served aboard her. When all was said and done, the Katori was his ship. He would use it for all of the noble pursuits championed by those that came before him, from the simple truth that he was a Starfleet officer, and she was a Starfleet vessel.

Idly, his tired eyes looked up from the PADD to the new dedication plaque hanging where the scorched and broken original had been. Admiral Tapscott had let a rare moment of embarrassment show through when the new plaque had been revealed:

USS Katori

Galaxy-X Class * Starfleet Registry NCC-71966

Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, Mars

Commissioned Stardate 45679.2 * Refit Stardate 68774.9

United Federation of Planets

"Redoubtable capacity tempered by infallible duty."

With a renewed vigor and a deep stretch from within the captain's chair, Commodore Russell continued over his diagnostics and his system reports, knowing that when the time came to break the Katori free of the dock's grasp, she would take her new form into the waiting galaxy with compassion and honor, for those were the qualities required of any Starfleet officer, and the requirements of any ship that carried the symbol of the Federation, no matter the threat and no matter the challenge.

She would meet them.

It was her nature.