What like a bullet can undeceive?
--Herman Melville, Shiloh
"No," Captain Jean-Luc Picard said firmly, his gaze fixed not at the Starfleet Tactical Engineer who stood awkwardly at the Ready Room's display system, but out the viewport at the vast, collected fleet of ships that seemed to create a grey-and-silver slick stretched into infinity. Every class of starship Picard had seen, heard of, read about, and few he hadn't were spread out through the Onyx Cluster behind the Enterprise. He could identify Nebulas, Mirandas, Excelsiors, Ambassadors, Intrepids, even a few of the newer Steamrunners and Norways. They bobbed like massive, energy-laden buoys on an unseen tide, their maneuvering thrusters pulsing every so often to hold their position true. One hundred and fifty ships and the Klingon Advance Fleet hadn't even arrived yet.
"Captain, I'm not sure you fully appreciate the nature of these modifications," the engineer started again. "They represent the very latest in weapon systems exclusive designed to engage the Dominion."
"I'm not disputing that fact, Lieutenant Davis," Picard said, aware that eyes of his senior staff and the small group of Starfleet Tactical Engineers were presently dissecting him, trying to understand his reaction."
Davis squinted diplomatically and cocked his head. "Then I'm sorry sir, but I don't--"
"Is the Sovereign-class design the most sophisticated ship design in the fleet?" he asked crisply.
"Yes sir, but..."
"The Enterprise has been in service for nearly two years. It has confronted, amongst other things, two Borg attack vessels and made trips through temporal rifts that I'm sure your design engineers never conceived of when they drew up the blueprints for it. Now you tell me we need further modifications? Modifications that would require you to alter several priority systems on this vessel as well as reprogram certain subroutines on the main computer? I'm not sure I can allow any procedure so disruptive to the basic nature of this ship."
Davis blinked a few times. He still wore a pair of coolant-stained coveralls and was clearly a man more comfortable crawling around ship's systems than he was confronting their masters.
"Sir, the addition of pulse phasers to the secondary hull, improved targeting systems, independent torpedo-launchers...all of these things can be done relatively easily and quickly. My crews would work in concert with Commander LaForge's and..."
"You're missing the point," Picard interrupted. The man was trying his patience. "To do these things, you would have to eliminate most of the Enterprise's capacity for scientific research, as well as reprogram the main computer's domains specifically designated for the interpretation and extrapolation of data from exploration. Isn't that correct?"
"For the systems to be integrated flawlessly and work at peak efficiency, yes..."
"That, Lieutenant Davis, is the point."
Picard could see Davis still didn't get it.
Responding, perhaps out of sympathy for the poor engineer, Riker leapt into the silence. "I believe what the captain objects to is making this a ship of war. The Enterprise is an exploration vessel. Not a battleship." He threw a sidelong glance at Picard, and Picard nodded his affirmation.
"The modifications Mr. Davis is proposing would be pretty easy to implement," LaForge said, sweeping the table with his neon-blue ocular vision.
"That's not the issue," Troi said softly. "It is an issue of whether or not we wish to become warriors for the Federation or explorers defending their principals by upholding them."
"The Jem'Hadar will be ruthless," Lieutenant Strain--the tactical officer and Chief of Security said flatly. "They do not take prisoners. They do not surrender. They battle to the death."
"Just like the Klingons," Riker said. "And the Borg. And while we're at it, the Romulans have never been tremendously flexible, either."
"However, neither of those races possessed the tactical advantages and numbers that the Dominion/Cardassian Alliance currently does," Data reminded them. Troi, seated beside him, recoiled a little.
"Data, you'd support this? Turning our ship into a..."
"Movable weapons platform?" Crusher offered dryly.
"I make no recommendation," Data said simply. "I only wished to bring certain pertinent facts to the group's attention."
"I think we know where we all stand," Picard said firmly, then stared down a befuddled Davis. "Lieutenant, you may make whatever modifications you wish to medical and engineering. There will be no upgrade of the weapons systems. Nor will there be any compromising of any current systems. Is that clear?"
Davis swallowed. "Yes sir."
Picard nodded, then reached over to edge of the table and held up a bluish, stone tablet, its surface covered with intricate carvings. "Lieutenant, this is Plagathi holy text. They were inscribed by hand, even after the Plagathi reached a state of technological advancement greater than our own. This was a gift, a peace offering, from the leader of a Plegathi nomadic tribe we encountered a few months ago. There weren't supposed to be any Plegathi left, Lieutenant. But there they were in a cluster of heavy gravitonic activity. We approached them with our shields down transmitting a message of peace. That, Lieutenant, is what the Starship Enterprise has always been. A ship of peace.
"Make no mistake: we will use every means to defend the Federation and its principles. But not at the cost of betraying the very spirit of this vessel. And not at then expense of our own souls. Is that understood?"
The silence that answered him was leaden.
"Very well then," he tugged at his uniform, "we all have our assignments."
The Klingons arrived as the senior staff filtered out of the Ready Room, and Picard paused for a moment to watch the two-hundred or so brackish-green ships take up seamless formation with the Federation fleet. The two fleets merged as neatly as a deck of cards in the hands of a professional dealer--for a century sworn enemies, then uneasy allies, now side-by-side into the fray.
Picard straightened up, threw his shoulders back, knowing that whatever else might come from this battle, the ideals of the Federation were alive here, now.
It had been seventeen hours and the air filtration systems had been running non-stop, but Picard could still smell the smoke. He suspected it was embedded in the carpeting, the bulkheads, and his conscience.
The ready room had not suffered much damage--even when the Enterprise's shields had faltered and eventually failed, they'd taken hits primarily to the saucer section and a few isolated shots to engineering. Picard had seen the exterior relays and the damage looked like spots of gangrene on his ship's hull. Emergency force-fields were in place over the hull breeches, but energy output was currently at one-hundred-twelve percent to keep the damaged systems operable. Picard didn't think it would be more than ten hours before they simply evacuated those areas and allowed the force fields to drop.
They had received some assistance from Deep Space Twelve in the form of fifteen refit Excelsior-class ships. Gleaming white with bulked-out secondary hulls and expanded impulse decks they'd've been a majestic sight if Picard hadn't also seen twenty-seven of that same class of vessel destroyed in under ten minutes when the Jem'Hadar warships and Cardassian Galor-class battleships hit the Second Fleet head on. Picard had thought they were crazy when he saw that, then he saw the brilliance of the plan: the capital ships had plunged into the cannon's mouth, allowing the small fighters and frigates to tear apart the preoccupied Fleet.
Now, through the flickering force field, Picard saw the remnants of the fleet as separate and individual testaments to a lot of bad decisions. The conspicuous absence of Miranda, Oberth, and K'Tinga-class vessels was a result of a sort of battlefield natural-selection. They were too old, out of date, unable to accommodate the latest advances in technology and starship design. They'd been destroyed with a few simple phaser blasts when the capital ships charged. Most of the Ambassadors and Nebulas were gone, too. They were too big and not maneuverable enough to defend themselves. In a matter of seconds, they'd gone from charging battleships to fortresses under siege, lashing out futilely at the swarming fighters, overpowered by the larger warships, pounded until they were burning hulls. Some of the Intrepids, Steamrunners, and Norways had survived, but none without battle damage, any many of Intrepids were being towed--their prominent warp/impulse struts having been sheared off by the Jem'Hadar fighters.
By far the ugliest testaments to the battle were the two Galaxy-class survivors. The Venture had lost its saucer section--Captain Kieley performing the audacious task of attempting separation during combat. The gambit had worked off; the saucer section had plunged, burning, into Cardassian Kelvin-class warship. The ship looked awkward and diminished, and Picard knew that in a very real way it was. It had lost a third of its power resources as well as much of its phaser capacity. After Kieley ditched the saucer, he'd been forced to withdraw from the capital ships and chase down the fighters, and one of the Federation's most powerful vessels had been reduced to an escort.
The Niagra was a bleaker picture. Her hulls was shattered and breached in many areas to such an extent that Picard guessed a shuttlecraft could maneuver into them. The skin was burned away and one of the nacelles bled crystallizing vapor. Picard doubted Starfleet would be able to repair it.
Fat medical ships were forming a perimeter around the remains of the Fleet, but Picard doubted they'd have much work to do. One great irony of the battle: there had been very few wounded. Death was instantaneous most of the time.
The door slid open. Picard turned and greeted Riker, accepted the padd he offered. "Repair schedule and adjusted assignment," he explained.
Picard scanned it, but didn't read much and didn't remember what he read.
"Shall I set a course for Starbase Thirteen?"
"Yes," Picard answered, then met Riker's haggard, dead-eyed gaze. "And request that Starfleet Tactical begin the weapons modifications as soon as we dock."
"Sir..." Riker started, but Picard cut him off with a slight gesture.
"Will, we should have had them before we engaged the Dominion. It was my own arrogance that we did not. I was complacent in our moral superiority, and if the battle did nothing else, it proved me very, very wrong."
"Sir, the results would have been the same. They had more ships than we did. They were willing to crash their capital ships into our own just to open a hole in our lines. The Klingons would never consider something that wasteful..."
"I know, Will. I'm not blaming myself--I'd like to, but we don't have that luxury. But the time has come for us to warriors." He leaned back in his chair. "We can no longer afford to be explorers or scientists for the time being. If we do, the Federation will fall."
"Yes sir," Riker said softly. "I'll put the order in."
Picard nodded his approval. "Dismissed." He waited until Riker was out of the room, and then, without taking his eyes off the ruined starships adrift around them, he picked up the Plagathi tablet and smashed it on the table.