The Journal of
Officer James Sterling
(My account of what happened on Zephyr)
Stardate: 3457
Zephyr date: January 14, 1236
I'm required by Starfleet regulations to record what happens in a journal, but nothing interesting ever happens in the middle of the ocean! Until today. For today was the first day in 10 years of service that was worth recording. I remember it exactly. It was around noon on the Platform, and the sun was frying anyone who was not in the shade. You would think that in January it would be snowing or something. Nope. Why? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T SNOW ON THE EQUATOR. Anyway, it was around noon and I thought I saw the faintest glint of metal directly overhead. At the time I thought it was just the sun playing tricks on my eyes, because I had been stuck with "swabbing the deck" all day. Around two hours later, it started to rain. No, strike that. It doesn't rain here either, IT POURS. "Just my luck" I thought. "I get stuck with cleaning duty the day the sky decides to drown us" A couple soldiers rushed out from their hiding places to aid me with buckets when I noticed one of them had a video camera. " I don't suppose you guys were hiding there trying to decide how to help." I said. Some of them started laughing. "Thought so." Between all of us, we prevented the deck from flooding. Eventually the clouds cleared up and the sun came out. Gasps rang out from all around me and everyone had a mixture of shock and fear on their face. "What?' I asked. One of the soldiers pointed behind me. I turned and could not believe what I was seeing, two Klingon Bird-of-Preys were firing on, and pursuing, a Galaxy class Federation ship. Another cloud cleared and I saw the Galaxy was towing a Federation Sovereign class ship behind it. The colonel voice blared over the loudspeakers, "All hands report to battle stations! Fire everything we've got at them!" A short pause, then "That includes the Federation vessels!" We were stunned. "Fire on one of our own vessels?" I thought. "Wasn't that treason?" Nevertheless I hurried my platoon to their assigned stations. Soon the whole station was ringing with the sound of gunfire. We caught on of the Birds by surprise and shot it down. Once the other Bird realized what was happening, it turned it's attention to us and starting shooting at us. One good shot brought it down in flames. The Galaxy still had, miraculously, some shields left and our shots were useless. "Charge the Ion Cannon , and bring that ship down!" The colonel shouted. A couple seconds later there was a deafening, electronic sounding, BOOM! Like a cross between a cannon and a swarm of angry bees. I looked up and saw that the cannon had split the Galaxy right in two! It had also shaved the top of the Sovereign off completely! "Why didn't I know that we had a weapon that powerful!" I thought. "Sir!" One of my soldiers was waving me over. "You've got to come see this!" I hurried over frowning, wondering what could be so urgent. After all, didn't we shoot all the ships down? I broke through the crowd and saw the colonel on his way over too. "My screen says there is another ship, a rather large one, but-" He looked up. "I don't see anything.""Let me see that" I said. I swore. "Sterling!" The colonel scoffed. "Sorry Sir, but this is textbook. What we have here, ladies and gents, is a cloaked ship. We can't do anything but wait for it to uncloak." Sure enough, a few minutes later, it seemed to realize we were here and uncloaked. We all were in shock of the size. The ship was as big as the whole platform, if not bigger. It was a Romulan Warbird, the toughest ship they have available. It stayed there for a moment facing us, as if we were ants and it was deciding to squish us or not. Suddenly, it released a barrage of laser fire aimed at us. The colonel was the first to snap out of his trance. "Fire the cannon at the main phaser port!" "What?" Someone shouted. "Shoot it in the middle!" the colonel yelled. I covered my ears, awaiting what happens next. Right before the Warbird took another shot, the ion cannon hit it and blew straight through the entire thing! It fell into the ocean with a tremendous crash! The waves rocked the entire platform. "Well" the colonel said. "We have our work cut out for us." I could not have put it better.
-Sterling