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AN: This is a story written by several member of a startrek forum in a group effort, the authors are: Rochey, Mikey, Teaos, Thorin, Blackstar, Metalhead, Granitehewer, Darkomen, Reliant, Monroe, Shran, Millensky.
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In one of the conference rooms over looking the docking bay of the Spacedock class starbase the senior officers and select personal of the USS Daystrom stood waiting for the arrival of the captain
In one of the conference rooms over looking the docking bay of the Spacedock class starbase the senior officers and select personal of the USS Daystrom stood waiting for the arrival of the captain.
The room was simple yet tidy in typical Starfleet style. An Oval shaped table with over a dozen high backed chairs surrounding it, all of which were empty at the time as the crew was still waiting upon the arrival of the captain.
Standing off to one side of the door the strangest member of the crew stood alone. Shuffling around slightly on his six legs due to his unfamiliarity with wearing a Starfleet made environmental suit the Tholian Andyeskovene Rocheineskina, who's only words to the rest of the crew so far had been to tell them to call him "Rochey" was eyeing up the crew that he was to serve with for the foreseeable future as part of the officer exchange program. His attention more often than not would rest upon the small group of officers standing by the table.
Standing at rigid attention despite the numerous times he had been told to be at ease one of the only non senior officer present was liberated Borg drone and now tactical team member and fighter wing commander Jack 'MetalHead' Ryson. He was in the company of Chief of Security Deepcrush Culley, Federation ambassador Alexis 'Cardinal' Harrison and Chief Tactical officer Jonathan Hewer. The team who mostly comprised the tactical and battle ready members of the senior crew was currently speculating on their mission. Most thoughts were on a mission in Tholian space due to their proximity and their newest officer.
Standing by the windows over looking their new ship was Chief Science Officer Teaos Whitshire, Chief Medical Officer Doctor Sarin Taal who had been given the name Omen during the war since he was usually the bearer of bad news, Chief Engineer Nicholas E Seafort, Chief of Operations M'karn 'Mikey' W'trisk and Helmsmen Blackstar. They were currently going over the capabilities of their new ship the Akira class version 3. With bio-neural computer pack several quantum torpedo tubes and several systems upgrades it was a step up from the ships that had fought in the war.
The doors to the conference room slid open and in walked Captain Fletcher. His first solo command he was a military man through and through, due to his performance as a peace keeper post war he had finally been given his own command and ship. Now all he had to do was break in his crew and ship.
Everyone took seats around the table apart from the non humanoids who stood at spaces around the table.
"Alright people this is our first mission together in what should hopefully be a long and distinguished service for the Daystrom. We are joined by Andyeskovene Rocheineskina who has been granted the rank of commander and role of second in command. I expect you do offer him all the respect and courtesy you would a normal Starfleet officer." He handed around a pile of PADDs for everyone to take with the mission brief on it.
"As you can see from the mission brief we are on a search and recover mission. Seven civilian and cargo ships have gone missing in this area of space 'he points to the local map up on the far wall' over the last five months. As this whole area is part of the Tholian defence grid it has frequent patrols and high sensors saturation. No Starfleet vessel has gone missing but they have not encountered anything to explain the disappearances either." The captain got out of his chair to walk around to the map on the far wall.
Pointing to the red line marking the boarder between Tholian and Federation space, he spoke, "As you can see we are stationed at the primary base of operations for Madox defence line, we are currently on Starbase T-12 the primary staging post for Madox defence group. The line consists of sixteen other smaller starbases along the line set up with sensors and limited docking and repair services. The starship contingent currently stands at forty three ships ranging from militarized vessels like our to standard Starfleet explorers." A number or dots appeared on the map as he pressed several buttons to show the current location of the starships and bases.
"I expect all of you to be up to speed on all this by the time we launch in seventy two hours. The Intrepid class USS-Freemen is working the same mission with us but they are stationed out of T-4 and will be working a different area from us. We will be in communication with them and the Madox defence group should we need it." Standing behind his chair he looked around at his new crew.
"This will be our first mission together, I know none of us have ever worked together before but I hope that we can turn the Daystrom into not just a ship but our home." Turning around he picked up his own PADD and walked to the door.
"Dismissed," he said as the doors closed behind him.
Commander Teaos stood up with most of the other members of the Senior crew. Looking over to Seafort to his left and Mikey next to him he noticed they both appeared to be about to leave.
"You guys want to go check out our new ship?" Teaos asked as he placed his PADD with the mission details under his arm. The other senior officers nodded in affirmative and the three made there way to the turbo lift following several other members of the crew who were apparently headed to the ship also.
Getting off at the loading bay they saw numerous station personal moving replicator stock and weapons supply around ready to load into theirs and other ships currently stationed at the base.
Standing on the short range pad to pad transporter along with several other members of the crew and some station staff they were beamed directly into one of the cargo bays.
Walking out of the Cargo bay the group split up. Several heading to the bridge some crew members obviously working on getting the ship ready and Teaos and his companions headed to Engineering.
Walking through the sliding doors into engineering they saw dozens of people running around. A few Daystrom crew members already at work check the systems and several maintenance crews working to make sure the ship was ready for launch. Just as the stepped up to the warp core the whole ship gave a little shudder as the warp core powered up giving off the standard blue glow.
"Well that should come in handy," Teaos said as one of the crew members handed Seafort a status report.
"Personal log; Chief of Operations Lieutenant W'trisk
After a week on Andoria and a slow trip back to the Alpha Quadrant, almost ready to get underway. Interestingly, I believe I will actually miss the Stilwell - she was a good little torpedo boat, and a fine post. Despite what Father says, however, I AM a true Andorian, and no such feelings will corrupt my dedication to this ship and her crew. In fact, some of the tricks we came up with on the New Orleans-class may come in handy on this monster.
Grandfather was better - he said I made the clan proud with a senior staff post like this, and gave to me as a keepsake Great-Great-Grandfather's Andorian Imperial Guard service pistol. It looks its age, but the clan has taken excellent care of it, and it fires as true as the day it was issued. These humans would have a time trying to find the 'stun' setting - ha! I had time to pack that, my childhood ushaan-tor, and a couple of cases of Clan Barr'li ale - the humans seem to like it, although I expect the Crystal Commander wouldn't want me to distribute too much of it.
I feel like my antennae just picked up a tropical storm - I am going to have to feel my way to balance engendering loyalty and demanding respect, as well as learning to give the same to a whole new group of superior officers.
Well, I believe I'll see if this replicator can make a decent dish of redbat, and check out my bridge station - if there's a SEAT, I think I'll put my boot through a bulkhead. Then, maybe I can trade a couple bottles to Seafort for a sensor engineer to help with those mods to the ops arrays which I had in mind for this particular mission...
End Log."
Doctor 'Omen' Sarin paused briefly to look at the medical diagnostic display poised above the operating tables in the Daystrom's medical ward. It was smaller than the one on the Galaxy, but it had been refit with all of the latest technology pioneered by the newer Starfleet vessels.
"Nurse, have all of the medical supplies been brought on board?"
"Yes Doctor. The crews finished approximately a half hour ago," replied the nurse, a Vulcan.
"Did the crews double check the manifest? The commander on Starbase T-12 in charge of supply transfer has been known to... forget to check his exports," Omen replied his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I... I will have them check again," the Vulcan replied, obviously baffled.
Omen left it at that, and turned back to the diagnostic display; something caught his eye.
"Computer, activate the EMH..."
A balding, middle aged man wearing Starfleet blues materialized in the middle of the room. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
"Hmm... How pleasant," mumbled Omen.
The door swished open and Chief Engineer Nick Seafort strode through the door.
"How may help you Lieutenant?" The Doctor asked jovially.
"Oh... I just have to do a final check on one of the ODN relays in sick bay," he replied wearily, obviously beginning to feel the strain of all the work for the preparation of the Daystrom's launch.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the EMH droned on in the background.
"Saying hi to your photonic friend?"
"Mmhm... Yes. I heard from the reports from the logs of the USS Voyager, they managed to make their EMH a very valuable part of the crew. I plan on making it... him... my personal project," said the doctor with a sly grin on his face.
Alexis 'Cardinal' Harrison, was a torn man; his two oaths (one of which oft repeated... and one; entirely unspeakable in polite circles, or in fact, any circle) were as mutually inclusive as lava and glaciers and pulled him in polar directions, like being chained and thus torn, between two belligerent stallions.
Janus, the roman, twin-faced Deity, was all too true; even in this seemingly secular universe.
With his gunboat diplomacy in hastily recruiting new confederates for the cause against the Dominion, he had earned quite a reputation as a mediator, but being quasi-famous for his oratory and brinksmanship, in a galaxy of countless billions, nay, trillions, for his other allegiance, this was as much a blessing as a curse; this shadowy oath, was the one that caused him to awake roiling in seas of rashes and sweaty palpitations; yet also comforted him.
Smoke and mirrors, he thought.
Commander Teaos was checking out his lab onboard the Daystrom with one of his junior crewmen. The Akira class being a far more militarized class of ship than most Starfleet designs, the science facilities on board was rather limited. It consisted of a single lab of modest size which also doubled as Teaos' office; his quarters at his request were right next door as well. This meant that he had slightly smaller quarters than someone of his rank was entitled to but he preferred being close at hand.
He only had nine crewmen under him and two of them doubled as sensor operators. Another was a young ensign on her first mission for Starfleet.
"Ensign Sternson, how do things look to you?" Teaos asked as he made his way over to her as she was running a diagnostic on their equipment.
"Small," she said with a snort, "Not exactly the astrophysics lab back at Starfleet academy is it, sir?"
"You'll find working with less than top of the line equipment tends to make you a better scientist not a worse one. Originally I asked for a posting on a Nova in some backwater research facility but with my lack of family they thought I'd be better suited out here," he said as he took in the room that would for all intents and purposes be his home for the foreseeable future.
There were two work stations on one side of the room with Teaos' office directly behind them behind a glass wall. On the back wall was a massive scene for display and analysis of data, it was meant to be a more compact version of an astrometrics projection. On the far side was a series of scanners on containment units for anything they may need to study.
"Well Ensign we'll just have to make do," he said as he headed for the bridge to check out the equipment up there.
"Seafort!" blustered the bright blue Mikey as he walked into main engineering, "we haven't been introduced properly. I am M'karn W'trisk, of clan Trisk, but everyone has called me 'Mikey' since I was at the Academy."
"Pleased to meet you," replied the chief engineer.
"Excellent. Now, I have a proposition for you."
Seafort eyed the Andorian dubiously, but said nothing as Mikey handed him a PADD.
Mikey continued, "I need an engineer with sensor systems experience - hopefully the chief engineer, hmmm? - to assist me in achieving THOSE sensor functions at the ops station."
Seafort glanced at the PADD, and said after a moment, "These should be no problem at all, but why? If you can't see where something is, why would you want to guess at its existence and then see where it was?"
"A trick from my last post, a New Orleans-class. When we had incoming Orions or pirates, we projected from these types of sensor functions and had three torps - one starboard, one port, one forward - all detonating about twenty five kilometres away from the bogey AS they dropped from warp. Nine times out of ten, we were able to apprehend and recover without too much more effort. I thought I could use these somewhat differently on this particular mission..."
"Whatever you say," shrugged Seafort. "I'll see who may be available, and when."
"Seafort," husked Mikey, "I would prefer the... ahem... most capable engineer to assist me in this. It may be more important than you think." Mikey smiled, and relaxed his tone. "And, if you were able to have it done by about 2030 hours tonight, there might be the prospect of being rewarded with my humble musical talents on the flabbjellah, plus a fifty percent stake in a bottle of REAL Andorian ale..."
As Mikey left engineering, he decided to head for sick bay. "Now," he said to himself, "what will it take to convince THIS doctor that you can't give an Andorian a hypospray..."
"Personal Log; Chief Tactical Officer Lieutenant Hewer
I have just met the rest of my crew, a pretty varied bunch with a nasty looking second-in-command, a Tholian. I've never met Captain Fletcher before, of course, but I had heard of him. The guys at the Academy were always raving about captains and commanders, whose ship they'd love to serve on. Fletcher's name came up a few times and probably not least because of his involvement with the Dominion War. Hell - the rumour was that if he'd have been in charge then we'd have won in half the time with half the losses. Still, beaurocrats and all that, commanding from their desks. I look forward to working with him, and the rest, though I will miss my old crew. Onwards and upwards, I say.
The Daystrom just underwent a large overhaul. I managed to blab my way into an Admiral's office and get to oversee the tactical upgrades. Nothing quite like getting to upgrade your very own ship, I'll tell you. It's a real engineer's dream, though I daresay even better for a tactical officer, there's not a ship in the fleet like the Akira. A real powerhouse filled with torpedoes. I've not even engaged it in a proper battle yet - of course I've hit some asteroids with photons and quantums, and fired a phaser burst or two at some pirate ships, but nothing worthy of note. I look forward to getting a chance to get some quantum torpedoes and shove them down some Borg throat! That reminds me, there's a liberated drone in the crew. I must watch what I say from now on!
I've still not got use to my rank. I'm the commanding officer of fifty five crewmembers! Relief officers, shift officers, tactical system engineers, tactical sensor analysis officers... I've even got a Betazed to see if there are any cloaked ships around! At least that's what I'll be using him for, ha-ha. Then there's our sister department, security, and that's an even bigger one than ours!
Anyway I'm getting hungry now; I've been poring over these system diagnostic reports for over an hour. Got to make sure our Captain's first impressions are good ones. I'm off to visit the new Security Chief soon so that we can discuss all the new arrangements for both our departments and coordinate our efforts with each other. Hmmm, think I'm in a bit of a steak and kidney pie mood...
End Log."