- CHAPTER 10 -
- ISS Hopolite, Main Bridge -
The turbolift doors opened and in strode the new absolute master of the Hopolite. On the same side as the organic looking remnant of a Borg ocular implant, on his collar, were the four sparkling gold pips of a Captain. The silver clasps holding the platinum edged crimson silk robe gleamed, even in the dull light of the Bridge. A step and a half behind him was his new first officer. Cmdr. P'tel's usually haughty features seemed to have grown even more so, as if emboldened by the new red accents on her uniform in place of her science department blue.
"Captain on the bridge!" the watch command said as he braced to attention in front of the command chair.
"As you were." The bridge crew still looked like they were at attention, despite assuming parade rest. That was good. It showed that, on the surface at least, they were willing to accept his unusual ascension to Captain rank. Thinking that brought back all the memories of what he had done, causing his stomach to flip-flop. He forced it to cease, never once showing his discomfort on his face. "Com, give me all ships address please." The use of please caused a moment of disconcertion on the com officers part. He had never heard a superior officer use it when giving an order. Not that he minded, on the contrary the thought that the new captain considered his crew near equals instead of the usual slave driver/lackey relationship appealed to him. While the aura of command permeated the order, the fact that it was phrased like a request made the officer want to follow it. And not out of fear of punishment for failure, but of fear of causing his new Captain to change his opinion of him.
"Aye sir." After pressing a few buttons the high pitched whistling boson's pipe chords caused nearly all action on the ship to stop. Those that were doing functions vital to the continued operation of the ship continued to work, but they too turned their ears to the all ship announcement.
"Crew of the Imperial Star Ship Hopolite, this is Captain Ulysses Vanguard. I have assumed command of this vessel. While under my command, things are going to be a little different than they were before. Starting now, while the ship is on day cycle, all lighting in common and work areas will be raised to 90% maximum. The temperature in said areas will also be dropped to 22 degrees Centigrade." There was no reason to tell them that this would most certainly increase their concentration and productivity. To do so would cause the inevitable troublemakers to drag their heels even more than usual. "You are, of course free to regulate the lighting and temperature in your own quarters as you see fit, but any deviation from these directives in both common and work areas will be met with strict punishment. Thank you for your time, Vanguard out."
"Computer," Ulysses continued, "decrease shipboard temperature to 22 degrees Centigrade in all areas but personal quarters. Also increase lighting in all areas but personal quarters to 90% max."
"Complying." The feminine voiced idiot savant replied. The crew seemed to wince and shiver at the same time. The much brighter than usual lighting irritated their eyes until their iris closed enough. And the sudden droop of close to 10 degrees, while not dangerous by any stretch of the imagination, was still a drastic change for those accustomed to warmer temperatures to get a chill. Under the more powerful lights, the silver and gray tones of the ship's interior became evident.
The tactical stations beeped in unison to attract their operators' attention. Chief tactical officer Lt. Cmdr. Percy Davenport and his first deputy Lt. Gabe Eton settled into their chairs to find out what was happening. Once the Captain sat in his chair, the rest of the bridge crew followed suit and started scanning their panels.
"Captain," Percy said, "sensors are reporting the arrival of a fleet of ships. They have dropped out of slipstream 500,000 km away. They appear to be 24th Fleet sir."
"Put them on screen. Transmit standard challenge." The main viewer switched from a view of the Borg station to the massed ships of 24th Fleet slipping rapidly through space. They did indeed appear to be the ships that the Hopolite had been waiting for. The feeble light from the red dwarf that was this systems sorry excuse for a star gave their dark gray hulls and pale blue slipstream nacelles a sickly orange cast. Their spotlights cast a pool of brilliant light on the silver names and registry numbers painted on the forward part of their saucers. They also shone on the silver pennant of the Terran Empire flowing along the sides of their secondary hulls.
They were in standard transit formation. First came a solid, slightly dome shaped wall of Defiant and Saber class vessels. Behind them came a slightly smaller wall of Intrepid, Steamrunner and Norway class ships. Next were the orderly ranks of 24th Fleet's capital ships. 10 Galaxy, 10 Akira, 15 Sovereign, 10 Prometheus, 3 Aegean class and 2 AWAC Nebula class ships constituted them. Finally, the fleet flagship trailed behind the rest. The Wraith class ISS Vengeance was twice again the size of a Sovereign. It looked a lot like a Prometheus class writ large.
The Wraith class program had been started at Starfleet Research and Development over 10 years before. The original specs had called for a dreadnought that could effectively engage a Borg Tactical Cube one on one and come out the victor on the other side. The end result was the ISS Wraith prototype. The massive vessel boasted enormous amounts of standard ablative armor, running over a meter thick. Over this, the new ablative armor generators had been mounted. They combined replicator and transporter technology to create a 3-foot thick layer of regenerating armor. Its regenerative shields went back to full strength in seconds, and it changed frequency thousands of times a second to keep Borg adaptation guessing. While some might think that its size would cause it to be hit more often, the larger size enabled more powerful shield generators to be installed, more than making up for the greater frequency of hits her larger hull would be forced to take.
It had been decided early on that while the new ship wouldn't have the Prometheus' multi vector assault mode, it would have its redundancy. Four separate Slipstream cores were scattered throughout the primary and secondary hulls. Each one was capable of meeting the power requirements of the entire ship all on its own. In a great departure from tradition, the main bridge was not located on deck one at the top of the primary hull. Instead, it was located on deck 18, in the middle of the saucer section to increase command staff survivability.
Three massive impulse engines were mounted on the rear of the arrowhead saucer section. They were able to give the ship maneuverability just slightly lower than that of a Sovereign. It also was equipped and designed, like the Prometheus shortly before it, to make better use of the newly acquired Quantum Slipstream drive. While standard, old style ships could use Slipstream, their hull forms were not designed to make EFFECTIVE use of it. They could only travel at around 3/4 the speed in Slipstream that designs like the Prometheus and Wraith could.
The ship also mounted weapons systems almost exclusively designed to engage the Borg. Two massive Type I Phaser Lances poked out of both the left and right side leading edge of the angular primary hull. The Type I Phaser Lance was a combination of captured Lyran ESG Lance tech combined with a very heavy phaser bank. The result was a massive weapon that, while slow firing, was capable of nearly cutting a Borg ship in half in one shot. Arrays of Type XIV Phasers wreathed the ship like deadly pearl necklaces. Type XIV Phasers were among the first normal phasers designed to from the ground up to fight the Borg. They jumped frequencies at random every nanosecond. Although their output was slightly less than the Type XII, they were able to penetrate Borg shields more often and more rapidly, making them considerably more deadly. Four burst-fire Quantum torpedo tubes faced fore and aft, fed by massive internal magazines.
A single massive launcher faced fore and aft down the centerline of the primary hull. It held the latest generation of Heavy Photon Torpedo. The size of a large shuttle, the Heavy torps were usually packed to the gills with massive amounts of antimatter or less often as M/AM explosives. They were used primarily against hardened targets after their shields went down, using the ships own hull as the other half of the matter/antimatter reaction. Due to their size, only 10 shots could be taken before the internal magazines ran dry, but it those shots his exposed hull, the ship turned into Swiss cheese if it remained at all.
20 Type II Pulse Phasers in ball turrets were also scattered across the hull. They were mated with a Phalanx Torpedo launcher each, and were primarily tasked with suppressing anything smaller than a Destroyer sized vessel. The Phalanx Torpedo was a Quantum Torpedo the size of a man's head. They only had about 1/20 the power of a normal Quantum, but they could be carried in much greater numbers due to their small size. And when fired in a volley of multiple launchers, even they could hurt.
The class had done very well against the Borg, especially at The Battle of First Urati. A fleet of two Borg Cubes, Three Spheres and 15 Interceptors had caught the Imperial 5th fleet during a resupply from the fleet train colliers. The two Wraith class vessels had been the only ones to have their stores topped off. The fleets Galaxies, Sovereigns, Intrepids, Steamrunners, Prometheus's and various smaller vessels had been forced to engage them with only their phasers and the few torpedoes left in their magazines. Although 1/4 of the lesser vessels had been destroyed outright, and the remaining ones damaged to greater or lesser extents, the two Wraiths had equated themselves well. Although one was destroyed when a sphere got close enough and rammed it, the other was only lightly damaged. On the other hand, all that was left of the Borg was expanding clouds of plasma and debris. The Wraith class vessels were truly the best Super Dreadnought sized ship in known space, and more than a worthy successor to the old Yamato class SD.
"Sir, our challenge has been accepted and the appropriate counter sign has been transmitted. 24th Fleet's flagship is hailing."
"Patch it through Lt. Nugen."
The vast swarm of closing ships on the viewer was replaced for a second by the silver sword and planet insignia of the Terran Empire. Then the dark bridge of the leviathan appeared. A man in the white and gold uniform of an admiral luxuriated in his command chair. His left breast was filled with a rather large cluster of campaign medals. From the horizontal, gold edged black bars on his shoulders filled with five gold pips and the circular pin of oak wreathed arrows on his collar tabs, he was a Fleet Admiral. And therefore he was 24th Fleet's commanding officer. His hair was well on the road from jet-black to silver, and while his face had the lines that age slowly but surely etched, his hazel eyes were still sharp. His elderly yet trim figure cut a dashing picture on the viewer. But Ulysses eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the figure crouched beside him.
There on the end of a chain, more like a leash, was the sorriest looking creature Ulysses had ever seen. The usually proud and stoic features of a Klingon warrior, even one raised as a slave, were long since absent from this ones face. His cheeks were sunken and the bony brow ridges were even more pronounced. He had large dark patches under his sunken eyes, or rather eye as one was covered in a seemingly riveted on patch. It was a haunted eye, an eye that seemed to have lost the spark of life. Yet the creature beside the Fleet Admiral still breathed, though he was terribly still except for when he involuntarily flinched when Fleet Admiral Tomas Chriton gave the leash/chain a quick tug. Admiral Chriton gave a slow smirk that barely lifted the corners of his mouth at the Klingon's reaction, and then turned to face the pickup again. Ulysses felt his stomach turn to ice and a shudder threatened to burst forth, but he fought it down. He had thought that Captain McBride had been bad, but he had had nothing on this monster in human guise before him. Even across the com, he radiated a palpable sense of evil.
"This is Fleet Admiral Tomas Chriton of 24th Fleet hailing ISS Hopolite. I do hope that you have everything ready as you were ordered to do. It just makes things go so much smoother. Not that I mind when things aren't in order. Then things may become a little rougher that way, but it is ever so much more fun!" His gravely voice was almost as scary as Ulysses had imagined it would be. And the way his face lit up when he spoke his last.
"It is my privilege to report that the Borg station is operational, and ready to be activated at your leisure Admiral." Ulysses managed to ground out without having his voice squeak.
"Then I shall contact you again when the 24th establishes a defensive perimeter, Chriton out." He almost seemed disappointed that everything had gone far better than was initially hoped. Almost like he had actually WANTED something to be out of order so he would be able to do unmentionable things to someone. Ulysses did shudder. That man was positively scary he thought, and judging by the reactions of the rest of the bridge crew, he wasn't the only one to feel that way. Ulysses thought hard for a moment, searching his memory for the appropriate term. Ah yes, he thought, that man give out a definite case of the hebe jebies.
- ISS Hopolite, Main Bridge -
The turbolift doors opened and in strode the new absolute master of the Hopolite. On the same side as the organic looking remnant of a Borg ocular implant, on his collar, were the four sparkling gold pips of a Captain. The silver clasps holding the platinum edged crimson silk robe gleamed, even in the dull light of the Bridge. A step and a half behind him was his new first officer. Cmdr. P'tel's usually haughty features seemed to have grown even more so, as if emboldened by the new red accents on her uniform in place of her science department blue.
"Captain on the bridge!" the watch command said as he braced to attention in front of the command chair.
"As you were." The bridge crew still looked like they were at attention, despite assuming parade rest. That was good. It showed that, on the surface at least, they were willing to accept his unusual ascension to Captain rank. Thinking that brought back all the memories of what he had done, causing his stomach to flip-flop. He forced it to cease, never once showing his discomfort on his face. "Com, give me all ships address please." The use of please caused a moment of disconcertion on the com officers part. He had never heard a superior officer use it when giving an order. Not that he minded, on the contrary the thought that the new captain considered his crew near equals instead of the usual slave driver/lackey relationship appealed to him. While the aura of command permeated the order, the fact that it was phrased like a request made the officer want to follow it. And not out of fear of punishment for failure, but of fear of causing his new Captain to change his opinion of him.
"Aye sir." After pressing a few buttons the high pitched whistling boson's pipe chords caused nearly all action on the ship to stop. Those that were doing functions vital to the continued operation of the ship continued to work, but they too turned their ears to the all ship announcement.
"Crew of the Imperial Star Ship Hopolite, this is Captain Ulysses Vanguard. I have assumed command of this vessel. While under my command, things are going to be a little different than they were before. Starting now, while the ship is on day cycle, all lighting in common and work areas will be raised to 90% maximum. The temperature in said areas will also be dropped to 22 degrees Centigrade." There was no reason to tell them that this would most certainly increase their concentration and productivity. To do so would cause the inevitable troublemakers to drag their heels even more than usual. "You are, of course free to regulate the lighting and temperature in your own quarters as you see fit, but any deviation from these directives in both common and work areas will be met with strict punishment. Thank you for your time, Vanguard out."
"Computer," Ulysses continued, "decrease shipboard temperature to 22 degrees Centigrade in all areas but personal quarters. Also increase lighting in all areas but personal quarters to 90% max."
"Complying." The feminine voiced idiot savant replied. The crew seemed to wince and shiver at the same time. The much brighter than usual lighting irritated their eyes until their iris closed enough. And the sudden droop of close to 10 degrees, while not dangerous by any stretch of the imagination, was still a drastic change for those accustomed to warmer temperatures to get a chill. Under the more powerful lights, the silver and gray tones of the ship's interior became evident.
The tactical stations beeped in unison to attract their operators' attention. Chief tactical officer Lt. Cmdr. Percy Davenport and his first deputy Lt. Gabe Eton settled into their chairs to find out what was happening. Once the Captain sat in his chair, the rest of the bridge crew followed suit and started scanning their panels.
"Captain," Percy said, "sensors are reporting the arrival of a fleet of ships. They have dropped out of slipstream 500,000 km away. They appear to be 24th Fleet sir."
"Put them on screen. Transmit standard challenge." The main viewer switched from a view of the Borg station to the massed ships of 24th Fleet slipping rapidly through space. They did indeed appear to be the ships that the Hopolite had been waiting for. The feeble light from the red dwarf that was this systems sorry excuse for a star gave their dark gray hulls and pale blue slipstream nacelles a sickly orange cast. Their spotlights cast a pool of brilliant light on the silver names and registry numbers painted on the forward part of their saucers. They also shone on the silver pennant of the Terran Empire flowing along the sides of their secondary hulls.
They were in standard transit formation. First came a solid, slightly dome shaped wall of Defiant and Saber class vessels. Behind them came a slightly smaller wall of Intrepid, Steamrunner and Norway class ships. Next were the orderly ranks of 24th Fleet's capital ships. 10 Galaxy, 10 Akira, 15 Sovereign, 10 Prometheus, 3 Aegean class and 2 AWAC Nebula class ships constituted them. Finally, the fleet flagship trailed behind the rest. The Wraith class ISS Vengeance was twice again the size of a Sovereign. It looked a lot like a Prometheus class writ large.
The Wraith class program had been started at Starfleet Research and Development over 10 years before. The original specs had called for a dreadnought that could effectively engage a Borg Tactical Cube one on one and come out the victor on the other side. The end result was the ISS Wraith prototype. The massive vessel boasted enormous amounts of standard ablative armor, running over a meter thick. Over this, the new ablative armor generators had been mounted. They combined replicator and transporter technology to create a 3-foot thick layer of regenerating armor. Its regenerative shields went back to full strength in seconds, and it changed frequency thousands of times a second to keep Borg adaptation guessing. While some might think that its size would cause it to be hit more often, the larger size enabled more powerful shield generators to be installed, more than making up for the greater frequency of hits her larger hull would be forced to take.
It had been decided early on that while the new ship wouldn't have the Prometheus' multi vector assault mode, it would have its redundancy. Four separate Slipstream cores were scattered throughout the primary and secondary hulls. Each one was capable of meeting the power requirements of the entire ship all on its own. In a great departure from tradition, the main bridge was not located on deck one at the top of the primary hull. Instead, it was located on deck 18, in the middle of the saucer section to increase command staff survivability.
Three massive impulse engines were mounted on the rear of the arrowhead saucer section. They were able to give the ship maneuverability just slightly lower than that of a Sovereign. It also was equipped and designed, like the Prometheus shortly before it, to make better use of the newly acquired Quantum Slipstream drive. While standard, old style ships could use Slipstream, their hull forms were not designed to make EFFECTIVE use of it. They could only travel at around 3/4 the speed in Slipstream that designs like the Prometheus and Wraith could.
The ship also mounted weapons systems almost exclusively designed to engage the Borg. Two massive Type I Phaser Lances poked out of both the left and right side leading edge of the angular primary hull. The Type I Phaser Lance was a combination of captured Lyran ESG Lance tech combined with a very heavy phaser bank. The result was a massive weapon that, while slow firing, was capable of nearly cutting a Borg ship in half in one shot. Arrays of Type XIV Phasers wreathed the ship like deadly pearl necklaces. Type XIV Phasers were among the first normal phasers designed to from the ground up to fight the Borg. They jumped frequencies at random every nanosecond. Although their output was slightly less than the Type XII, they were able to penetrate Borg shields more often and more rapidly, making them considerably more deadly. Four burst-fire Quantum torpedo tubes faced fore and aft, fed by massive internal magazines.
A single massive launcher faced fore and aft down the centerline of the primary hull. It held the latest generation of Heavy Photon Torpedo. The size of a large shuttle, the Heavy torps were usually packed to the gills with massive amounts of antimatter or less often as M/AM explosives. They were used primarily against hardened targets after their shields went down, using the ships own hull as the other half of the matter/antimatter reaction. Due to their size, only 10 shots could be taken before the internal magazines ran dry, but it those shots his exposed hull, the ship turned into Swiss cheese if it remained at all.
20 Type II Pulse Phasers in ball turrets were also scattered across the hull. They were mated with a Phalanx Torpedo launcher each, and were primarily tasked with suppressing anything smaller than a Destroyer sized vessel. The Phalanx Torpedo was a Quantum Torpedo the size of a man's head. They only had about 1/20 the power of a normal Quantum, but they could be carried in much greater numbers due to their small size. And when fired in a volley of multiple launchers, even they could hurt.
The class had done very well against the Borg, especially at The Battle of First Urati. A fleet of two Borg Cubes, Three Spheres and 15 Interceptors had caught the Imperial 5th fleet during a resupply from the fleet train colliers. The two Wraith class vessels had been the only ones to have their stores topped off. The fleets Galaxies, Sovereigns, Intrepids, Steamrunners, Prometheus's and various smaller vessels had been forced to engage them with only their phasers and the few torpedoes left in their magazines. Although 1/4 of the lesser vessels had been destroyed outright, and the remaining ones damaged to greater or lesser extents, the two Wraiths had equated themselves well. Although one was destroyed when a sphere got close enough and rammed it, the other was only lightly damaged. On the other hand, all that was left of the Borg was expanding clouds of plasma and debris. The Wraith class vessels were truly the best Super Dreadnought sized ship in known space, and more than a worthy successor to the old Yamato class SD.
"Sir, our challenge has been accepted and the appropriate counter sign has been transmitted. 24th Fleet's flagship is hailing."
"Patch it through Lt. Nugen."
The vast swarm of closing ships on the viewer was replaced for a second by the silver sword and planet insignia of the Terran Empire. Then the dark bridge of the leviathan appeared. A man in the white and gold uniform of an admiral luxuriated in his command chair. His left breast was filled with a rather large cluster of campaign medals. From the horizontal, gold edged black bars on his shoulders filled with five gold pips and the circular pin of oak wreathed arrows on his collar tabs, he was a Fleet Admiral. And therefore he was 24th Fleet's commanding officer. His hair was well on the road from jet-black to silver, and while his face had the lines that age slowly but surely etched, his hazel eyes were still sharp. His elderly yet trim figure cut a dashing picture on the viewer. But Ulysses eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the figure crouched beside him.
There on the end of a chain, more like a leash, was the sorriest looking creature Ulysses had ever seen. The usually proud and stoic features of a Klingon warrior, even one raised as a slave, were long since absent from this ones face. His cheeks were sunken and the bony brow ridges were even more pronounced. He had large dark patches under his sunken eyes, or rather eye as one was covered in a seemingly riveted on patch. It was a haunted eye, an eye that seemed to have lost the spark of life. Yet the creature beside the Fleet Admiral still breathed, though he was terribly still except for when he involuntarily flinched when Fleet Admiral Tomas Chriton gave the leash/chain a quick tug. Admiral Chriton gave a slow smirk that barely lifted the corners of his mouth at the Klingon's reaction, and then turned to face the pickup again. Ulysses felt his stomach turn to ice and a shudder threatened to burst forth, but he fought it down. He had thought that Captain McBride had been bad, but he had had nothing on this monster in human guise before him. Even across the com, he radiated a palpable sense of evil.
"This is Fleet Admiral Tomas Chriton of 24th Fleet hailing ISS Hopolite. I do hope that you have everything ready as you were ordered to do. It just makes things go so much smoother. Not that I mind when things aren't in order. Then things may become a little rougher that way, but it is ever so much more fun!" His gravely voice was almost as scary as Ulysses had imagined it would be. And the way his face lit up when he spoke his last.
"It is my privilege to report that the Borg station is operational, and ready to be activated at your leisure Admiral." Ulysses managed to ground out without having his voice squeak.
"Then I shall contact you again when the 24th establishes a defensive perimeter, Chriton out." He almost seemed disappointed that everything had gone far better than was initially hoped. Almost like he had actually WANTED something to be out of order so he would be able to do unmentionable things to someone. Ulysses did shudder. That man was positively scary he thought, and judging by the reactions of the rest of the bridge crew, he wasn't the only one to feel that way. Ulysses thought hard for a moment, searching his memory for the appropriate term. Ah yes, he thought, that man give out a definite case of the hebe jebies.