-Chapter Three - The Valley Forge-
-Terra Orbit, Sol System, Sector One, Two days later-
The Orbital Shuttle glided up through Terra's atmosphere, the sky darkening from light blue to navy blue to black in the shuttles massive foreword and aft panoramic windows as the swift shuttle left the last vestiges of oxygen and nitrogen behind. As it cruised towards its destination, it passed by the recovery efforts still ongoing in Terra orbit. The massive spacedock and battle stations were still shrouded in the shattered remains of their wounded hulls. Work bees were swarming around them, patching hulls and gathering the broken, twisted wreckage for recycling. Behind the shuttle, just popping over the horizon near the dawning sun, a dark pall appeared. It was the site of the first successful attack on Terra in over 200 years. Over two billion dead, with the exact numbers still not known. Numbers that big were hard to grasp in there true scope. They tended to become a sad statistic, people not directly affected by the attack forgetting the true cost, the pain, the all to human side of the attacks. The fact that the Terran Empire hadn't hesitated to execute similar attacks in the past on ENTIRE planets was conveniently left out of the news reports on the disaster. It didn't excuse what the Grand Alliance had done to Terra, for they had merely sunk to its despicable level as far as Ulysses was concerned. Yet the GA did have a certain perverse justification for what it had done. The attack had caused chaos in the core worlds, keeping the final maneuvers of the GA fleets hidden from the forefront of both civilian and military minds. I had enabled them to retake their homeland, to throw off the yoke of their Terran taskmasters.
The sheer enormity of the cleanup and forced terraforming of most of California to repair the damage the Mauler beam had caused was mind boggling. A few thousand survivors had been found in the rubble, but it was now feared that all that was left would be body retrieval. Even with modern sensors, weak biosigns buried beneath billions of tons of rubble and shorting out electronics were hard to find. Some rubble was to deep to beam out survivors, which meant that old-fashioned moving of the pile by hand was required. Modern cutting implements and tractor beam emitters made the job far easier than it would have normally been, but it was still horrible, tedious work. Transporters were mostly unable to help out, because the sudden loss of as much mass as they could transport out might cause a deadly shift in the surrounding rubble.
Of ground zero, the site in what had been downtown San Francisco where the Council tower had stood tall, there was only a volcano like pit filled with bubbling, churning lava that was slowly scabbing over as it cooled. California had grown by a surprising amount as well, the massive slabs of still cooling lava flows trailing from where San Francisco had been downhill to the sea. A massive cloud of smoke and ash still hung over much of western North America, reaching high up into the stratosphere. The Weather Control satellites were trying their best to remove it, and were slowly making headway against it. Despite this, most of the state's neighboring California were now in perpetual twilight as the heavy cloud blocked out the sun. Without the Weather Control network, all of Terra might have fallen into what was once known as a Nuclear Winter. Ulysses tore his eyes away from the funeral pyre that still burned on Terra. It reminded him too much of his own personal loss so recently brought back to the forefront of his mind. It also reminded him of what he hoped to eventually accomplish. The goal of all followers of Spock was to create a world where attacks like the one on San Francisco don't happen.
The rest of his officers joining him on his new ship also took long hard stares at the continued devastation Terra had had set loose upon her. But they were a levelheaded bunch. Most of them had seen first hand what a total orbital bombardment did to a planet and none of them liked it. They too seemed to want to eliminate the need for such attacks on BOTH sides of the conflict. Some of them might even prove good candidates for becoming followers of Spock. But now, more than ever, the followers of Spock had to tread lightly. Section 31 commissars had been added to all starships. They were there to keep an eye on Starfleet personnel in light of the traitorous actions some had engaged in of late. Yet Ulysses now thought that the quick arrests, trials and executions of so many high-ranking officers, despite the "evidence" that had appeared, was just a little to neat and tidy. Some of the accusations were undoubtedly true, for if one dug deep enough, one was bound to find something incriminating. But knowing now just what Emperor Jack Chambers was personally capable of, getting rid of his most obvious contenders for power was a painfully obvious tactic. And now with Section spies on every vessel in the fleet, there was bound to be more arrests and executions for many years to come.
The shuttle whizzed by the multitudinous battle stations, orbital weapons platforms and starships that hovered near by Terra, following its assigned route perfectly. With so many objects, many of them capable of high PSL maneuvers, staying where orbital control told you was an absolute must. The small shuttle approached the massive conglomeration of shipyards known simply as The Yard. Every time one came to Sol system, The Yard was subtly different. It was constantly expanding, ships entering and leaving its births, more shipyard modules being added. The Yard in its current form resembled a series of wheels on a long central axis. The wheels were made up of many spokes that terminated in an shipyard. There were currently over 100 of the massive Imperial Terra class shipyards operational on The Yard, with over 4000 slips total including the lesser shipyards. The entire construct was close to 150 km long, and a very imposing sight in Terra's night sky. Still more battle stations, OWPs and starships stood guard around her. The Yard was operational 24/7, with work bees and hardsuited engineers and yard dogs diligently working on new starships for the Empire. Hulls in various states of completion sat in the arms of their slips. All kinds of vessels were being built in her many slips. Small Saber class frigates, tough Defiant class destroyers, the new, deadly sleekness of Soulwolfs, Prometheus and Akira class battlecruisers, Sovereign and Galaxy class battleships and the massive, brute force power of Wraith super dreadnoughts could all be seen in varying states of completion. In the six years since the termination of the Imperial/Borg war, most sector defense fleets had been built back up to near prewar strengths. It was mainly in the offensive fleets that hull numbers were still dangerously under strength.
With the new threat of the Grand Alliance, the yard crews were working even harder to make up the losses in capital ships. Stations similar to, but not as massive as, The Yard were in operation at Alpha Centauri and Vulcan, to say nothing of the smaller shipyards scattered throughout the Empire. An Imperial Terra class yard could turn out, if constantly supplied with enough raw materials, three Wraith class starships in about 240 days. Smaller ships took logically shorter time spans.
Cmdr. Clay Heidberg let out a low whistle as he took in some of the new ships being built. "They finally started building the Excalibur class Fleet Carriers!" He said in quiet awe. The Excalibur class was slightly bigger than a Wraith class at 1500 m in length. They could house close to 200 Cobra Fighters each, and were respectable offensive platforms themselves. They resembled a cross between the Sovereign and Ark Royal classes.
"Yup. About time to, the design is nearly obsolete. What they should do is take the Wraith class hull as a base and convert it to a carrier. It's a faster platform with almost the same internal volume." Ulysses replied. Heidberg could only grunt in reply, for what his Captain had said was the honest truth. Bu Ships wasn't known for high speed introduction of new designs, especially new designs that contradict their pet theories of warship design. Far to many of the brass at Bu Ships was from the time when Carriers weren't required. Now, with the need for as much firepower to be put into space as possible, they had no choice in the matter. It was both cheaper and faster to put a Fleet Carrier and its brood into space than it was to put a similarly sized SD. But while the fighter/carrier combo had better raw firepower, a SD had CONSIDERABLY more staying power against a heavy opponent. Hence both designs had their place in the grand scheme of things. And while carriers might not be the best for attacking an enemy battle wall, they were excellent for anti piracy missions and raids on lightly defended targets.
Rank hath its privileges, and Ulysses now had access to considerably more information than he had while he was a Lt. Cmdr. Through that, he had learned just how valuable those ships and the fighters they carried would be. Between raids by the GA members and a sudden rise in pirate activity Empire wide, every new hull put into space ASAP would better protect the shipping lanes that were the life blood of the Imperial economy.
While standard replicators on sight could handle most of the basic needs of a planets population, a lot of rare or hard to replicate items needed to be manufactured off of colony worlds and shipped there. This included things like aircars and other mechanical devices to large for a standard replicator to handle. Industrial replicators were extremely expensive and maintenance prone, so they were usually only found in core systems.
"There she is! .I think." Heidberg exclaimed, slightly unsure. And who could blame him, with the sheer amount of construction going on it was hard to pick out a specific ship unless you knew exactly where to look.
"Where!?" The other officers said at the same time.
"Even with us and a little to the left, behind the half finished Soulwolfs there." Heidberg said, pointing towards a spoke that ended in an Armstrong class shipyard. It housed four unfinished Soulwolfs, but the next spoke from the central hub held a Wraith class. Ulysses looked and could just make out the upper dorsal surfaces of his new command, but even if the entire ship were visible it would only be about the size of a pinky fingernail at the current range. That meant that she was far too distant for her construction number and name to be seen as anything other than a silver smear on her prow.
"Ensign, request approach and docking clearance with Yard traffic control." Ulysses said.
"Aye, aye sir!" the extremely young looking pilot of the Orbital Shuttle said in almost a squeak. He had never in his short career been in such close proximity to real live heroes and was more than a little nervous. Was I ever that young Ulysses thought? "Shuttle Sierra Lima Two Zero Three Seven to Yard Traffic Control, requesting approach corridor and docking clearance."
"Roger that SL-2037, transmitting corridor and docking clearance now."
"Thank you, Yard Control, Shuttle SL-2037 out." On the shuttle's panel, a highlighted path appeared. The young ensign at the shuttles controls moved seemingly effortlessly to follow it. The bulk of The Yard grew in the shuttles bubble window, eventually blocking out the stars. Unfortunately, the docking bay they were assigned to was on the opposite side of the starbase as the slip of his new command was. After a quick trip across the station to the appropriate spoke, Ulysses presented his documentation. The lightly armored marine sentry gave the presented PADD a thorough examination, calling up records on his own terminal to ensure they matched. He did the same for the rest of the officers with Ulysses, clearing Cmdr. P'tel, Cmdr. Heidberg, Cmdr. Davenport, Lt. Cmdr. Eaton and his new helm officer, Lt. Demora Sulu (named after her grandmother) in turn. Once he was satisfied, he nodded to his fellow to stand aside from the corridor.
"You and your party are cleared for entry sir!" He said bracing to attention and snapping off a salute. Ulysses returned it smartly, then proceeded down the hall. Each spoke of the station was five decks high, but the top deck was special. It was arched down its length, but the roof was made up of transparent aluminum, giving a breathtaking view of the station as it stretched away above the spoke. What was better was that it gave an almost totally unobstructed view of the ship hanging in the arms of the yard slip at the end of it. Her knife edge lines were clearly visible from Ulysses side profile view of her. Spotlights gleamed on her charcoal hull as hardsuited yard dogs worked with chem catalyst gear to lay down the final few patches of ablative armor while others worked on attaching the odd ablative armor generator or small patch of hull plateing. She was basically complete, the spotlights shining down on her silver hull pennant. The ISS Valley Forge, New Construction Contract 4045 - B.
She wasn't the usual Wraith class, that much was obvious from a cursory examination. Where a normal Wraith was angular with more rounded edges, this one was dagger like. All edges came to sharp points. Where a usual Wraith looked like a warship just because of sheer size and brute power, the Valley Forge looked like a warship because it was like a carefully honed blade. The brute power was still there, but it was merely an addition to the impact of the new hull form. It was like comparing a war hammer to a great sword. Both can kill, but the great sword looks deadly just sitting there. From her needle like prow to her expanded shuttle bay, Ulysses fell in love with her from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Even unpowered and sitting in her construction slip, she possessed a naked lethality. And she was his in a way none of his other commands could have been. He was her first master, meaning that he would mold her crew into his vision of what a crew should be.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Ulysses said to his officers who had stopped dead in their tracks upon getting their first clean look at their new ship, "I give you your new home, the ISS Valley Forge, NCC 4045-B. She's a Wraith class upgrade, which means she's faster and meaner than any other Super Dreadnought in space. For STL engines, she has Borg drives instead of impulse. This makes her both slightly faster and considerably more maneuverable in normal space. Max rated STL speed of 77 PSL with a maneuver class of 3 (putting it on par with a Sovereign). And with no massive impulse engine housings to target, she'll be able to hang in a fight a lot longer without taking drive damage. Standard layout of quad slipstream cores mated with four more powerful nacelles, enabling us to keep pace with a Soulwolf in slipstream. New, more knife like hull form also contributes to the higher speed.
Triple foreword and single aft Phaser Lance Mk 2's, One front and back down the centerline, one on either side of the foreword primary hull 30 degrees off centerline. Standard fore and aft Heavy Photon Torpedo tube but with extended magazine space thanks to the widened secondary hull. Four foreword burst fire Quantum Torpedo turrets, two on the dorsal primary hull, two on the ventral primary hull. Two aft burst fire Quantum Torpedo turrets nestled aft of the nacelle hull joints. 25 Phalanx Torpedo/dual Pulse Phaser Cannon turrets scattered strategically across her hull. And last but not least, 22 Type XV Phaser arrays for primary armament.
Phase cloaking ability, along with standard cloak and holographic chameleon skin. Mk 5 ECM Drones, Holographic Main and Flag bridge command displays. She's got extra Ablative Armor and Mk 2Ablative Armor Generators. Newest Shield generators with nearly double the output of the old ones. You all have a week to come fully up to speed on all her systems, because in just over a week, well be taking her out for her space worthiness trials. Now that you have seen the outside of her, let's see the inside shall we?" Ulysses said, then started walking down the spoke again. After half a pause, the rest of his senior officers followed him. All of their eyes greedily took in their new ship as they walked towards her.
-Terra Orbit, Sol System, Sector One, Two days later-
The Orbital Shuttle glided up through Terra's atmosphere, the sky darkening from light blue to navy blue to black in the shuttles massive foreword and aft panoramic windows as the swift shuttle left the last vestiges of oxygen and nitrogen behind. As it cruised towards its destination, it passed by the recovery efforts still ongoing in Terra orbit. The massive spacedock and battle stations were still shrouded in the shattered remains of their wounded hulls. Work bees were swarming around them, patching hulls and gathering the broken, twisted wreckage for recycling. Behind the shuttle, just popping over the horizon near the dawning sun, a dark pall appeared. It was the site of the first successful attack on Terra in over 200 years. Over two billion dead, with the exact numbers still not known. Numbers that big were hard to grasp in there true scope. They tended to become a sad statistic, people not directly affected by the attack forgetting the true cost, the pain, the all to human side of the attacks. The fact that the Terran Empire hadn't hesitated to execute similar attacks in the past on ENTIRE planets was conveniently left out of the news reports on the disaster. It didn't excuse what the Grand Alliance had done to Terra, for they had merely sunk to its despicable level as far as Ulysses was concerned. Yet the GA did have a certain perverse justification for what it had done. The attack had caused chaos in the core worlds, keeping the final maneuvers of the GA fleets hidden from the forefront of both civilian and military minds. I had enabled them to retake their homeland, to throw off the yoke of their Terran taskmasters.
The sheer enormity of the cleanup and forced terraforming of most of California to repair the damage the Mauler beam had caused was mind boggling. A few thousand survivors had been found in the rubble, but it was now feared that all that was left would be body retrieval. Even with modern sensors, weak biosigns buried beneath billions of tons of rubble and shorting out electronics were hard to find. Some rubble was to deep to beam out survivors, which meant that old-fashioned moving of the pile by hand was required. Modern cutting implements and tractor beam emitters made the job far easier than it would have normally been, but it was still horrible, tedious work. Transporters were mostly unable to help out, because the sudden loss of as much mass as they could transport out might cause a deadly shift in the surrounding rubble.
Of ground zero, the site in what had been downtown San Francisco where the Council tower had stood tall, there was only a volcano like pit filled with bubbling, churning lava that was slowly scabbing over as it cooled. California had grown by a surprising amount as well, the massive slabs of still cooling lava flows trailing from where San Francisco had been downhill to the sea. A massive cloud of smoke and ash still hung over much of western North America, reaching high up into the stratosphere. The Weather Control satellites were trying their best to remove it, and were slowly making headway against it. Despite this, most of the state's neighboring California were now in perpetual twilight as the heavy cloud blocked out the sun. Without the Weather Control network, all of Terra might have fallen into what was once known as a Nuclear Winter. Ulysses tore his eyes away from the funeral pyre that still burned on Terra. It reminded him too much of his own personal loss so recently brought back to the forefront of his mind. It also reminded him of what he hoped to eventually accomplish. The goal of all followers of Spock was to create a world where attacks like the one on San Francisco don't happen.
The rest of his officers joining him on his new ship also took long hard stares at the continued devastation Terra had had set loose upon her. But they were a levelheaded bunch. Most of them had seen first hand what a total orbital bombardment did to a planet and none of them liked it. They too seemed to want to eliminate the need for such attacks on BOTH sides of the conflict. Some of them might even prove good candidates for becoming followers of Spock. But now, more than ever, the followers of Spock had to tread lightly. Section 31 commissars had been added to all starships. They were there to keep an eye on Starfleet personnel in light of the traitorous actions some had engaged in of late. Yet Ulysses now thought that the quick arrests, trials and executions of so many high-ranking officers, despite the "evidence" that had appeared, was just a little to neat and tidy. Some of the accusations were undoubtedly true, for if one dug deep enough, one was bound to find something incriminating. But knowing now just what Emperor Jack Chambers was personally capable of, getting rid of his most obvious contenders for power was a painfully obvious tactic. And now with Section spies on every vessel in the fleet, there was bound to be more arrests and executions for many years to come.
The shuttle whizzed by the multitudinous battle stations, orbital weapons platforms and starships that hovered near by Terra, following its assigned route perfectly. With so many objects, many of them capable of high PSL maneuvers, staying where orbital control told you was an absolute must. The small shuttle approached the massive conglomeration of shipyards known simply as The Yard. Every time one came to Sol system, The Yard was subtly different. It was constantly expanding, ships entering and leaving its births, more shipyard modules being added. The Yard in its current form resembled a series of wheels on a long central axis. The wheels were made up of many spokes that terminated in an shipyard. There were currently over 100 of the massive Imperial Terra class shipyards operational on The Yard, with over 4000 slips total including the lesser shipyards. The entire construct was close to 150 km long, and a very imposing sight in Terra's night sky. Still more battle stations, OWPs and starships stood guard around her. The Yard was operational 24/7, with work bees and hardsuited engineers and yard dogs diligently working on new starships for the Empire. Hulls in various states of completion sat in the arms of their slips. All kinds of vessels were being built in her many slips. Small Saber class frigates, tough Defiant class destroyers, the new, deadly sleekness of Soulwolfs, Prometheus and Akira class battlecruisers, Sovereign and Galaxy class battleships and the massive, brute force power of Wraith super dreadnoughts could all be seen in varying states of completion. In the six years since the termination of the Imperial/Borg war, most sector defense fleets had been built back up to near prewar strengths. It was mainly in the offensive fleets that hull numbers were still dangerously under strength.
With the new threat of the Grand Alliance, the yard crews were working even harder to make up the losses in capital ships. Stations similar to, but not as massive as, The Yard were in operation at Alpha Centauri and Vulcan, to say nothing of the smaller shipyards scattered throughout the Empire. An Imperial Terra class yard could turn out, if constantly supplied with enough raw materials, three Wraith class starships in about 240 days. Smaller ships took logically shorter time spans.
Cmdr. Clay Heidberg let out a low whistle as he took in some of the new ships being built. "They finally started building the Excalibur class Fleet Carriers!" He said in quiet awe. The Excalibur class was slightly bigger than a Wraith class at 1500 m in length. They could house close to 200 Cobra Fighters each, and were respectable offensive platforms themselves. They resembled a cross between the Sovereign and Ark Royal classes.
"Yup. About time to, the design is nearly obsolete. What they should do is take the Wraith class hull as a base and convert it to a carrier. It's a faster platform with almost the same internal volume." Ulysses replied. Heidberg could only grunt in reply, for what his Captain had said was the honest truth. Bu Ships wasn't known for high speed introduction of new designs, especially new designs that contradict their pet theories of warship design. Far to many of the brass at Bu Ships was from the time when Carriers weren't required. Now, with the need for as much firepower to be put into space as possible, they had no choice in the matter. It was both cheaper and faster to put a Fleet Carrier and its brood into space than it was to put a similarly sized SD. But while the fighter/carrier combo had better raw firepower, a SD had CONSIDERABLY more staying power against a heavy opponent. Hence both designs had their place in the grand scheme of things. And while carriers might not be the best for attacking an enemy battle wall, they were excellent for anti piracy missions and raids on lightly defended targets.
Rank hath its privileges, and Ulysses now had access to considerably more information than he had while he was a Lt. Cmdr. Through that, he had learned just how valuable those ships and the fighters they carried would be. Between raids by the GA members and a sudden rise in pirate activity Empire wide, every new hull put into space ASAP would better protect the shipping lanes that were the life blood of the Imperial economy.
While standard replicators on sight could handle most of the basic needs of a planets population, a lot of rare or hard to replicate items needed to be manufactured off of colony worlds and shipped there. This included things like aircars and other mechanical devices to large for a standard replicator to handle. Industrial replicators were extremely expensive and maintenance prone, so they were usually only found in core systems.
"There she is! .I think." Heidberg exclaimed, slightly unsure. And who could blame him, with the sheer amount of construction going on it was hard to pick out a specific ship unless you knew exactly where to look.
"Where!?" The other officers said at the same time.
"Even with us and a little to the left, behind the half finished Soulwolfs there." Heidberg said, pointing towards a spoke that ended in an Armstrong class shipyard. It housed four unfinished Soulwolfs, but the next spoke from the central hub held a Wraith class. Ulysses looked and could just make out the upper dorsal surfaces of his new command, but even if the entire ship were visible it would only be about the size of a pinky fingernail at the current range. That meant that she was far too distant for her construction number and name to be seen as anything other than a silver smear on her prow.
"Ensign, request approach and docking clearance with Yard traffic control." Ulysses said.
"Aye, aye sir!" the extremely young looking pilot of the Orbital Shuttle said in almost a squeak. He had never in his short career been in such close proximity to real live heroes and was more than a little nervous. Was I ever that young Ulysses thought? "Shuttle Sierra Lima Two Zero Three Seven to Yard Traffic Control, requesting approach corridor and docking clearance."
"Roger that SL-2037, transmitting corridor and docking clearance now."
"Thank you, Yard Control, Shuttle SL-2037 out." On the shuttle's panel, a highlighted path appeared. The young ensign at the shuttles controls moved seemingly effortlessly to follow it. The bulk of The Yard grew in the shuttles bubble window, eventually blocking out the stars. Unfortunately, the docking bay they were assigned to was on the opposite side of the starbase as the slip of his new command was. After a quick trip across the station to the appropriate spoke, Ulysses presented his documentation. The lightly armored marine sentry gave the presented PADD a thorough examination, calling up records on his own terminal to ensure they matched. He did the same for the rest of the officers with Ulysses, clearing Cmdr. P'tel, Cmdr. Heidberg, Cmdr. Davenport, Lt. Cmdr. Eaton and his new helm officer, Lt. Demora Sulu (named after her grandmother) in turn. Once he was satisfied, he nodded to his fellow to stand aside from the corridor.
"You and your party are cleared for entry sir!" He said bracing to attention and snapping off a salute. Ulysses returned it smartly, then proceeded down the hall. Each spoke of the station was five decks high, but the top deck was special. It was arched down its length, but the roof was made up of transparent aluminum, giving a breathtaking view of the station as it stretched away above the spoke. What was better was that it gave an almost totally unobstructed view of the ship hanging in the arms of the yard slip at the end of it. Her knife edge lines were clearly visible from Ulysses side profile view of her. Spotlights gleamed on her charcoal hull as hardsuited yard dogs worked with chem catalyst gear to lay down the final few patches of ablative armor while others worked on attaching the odd ablative armor generator or small patch of hull plateing. She was basically complete, the spotlights shining down on her silver hull pennant. The ISS Valley Forge, New Construction Contract 4045 - B.
She wasn't the usual Wraith class, that much was obvious from a cursory examination. Where a normal Wraith was angular with more rounded edges, this one was dagger like. All edges came to sharp points. Where a usual Wraith looked like a warship just because of sheer size and brute power, the Valley Forge looked like a warship because it was like a carefully honed blade. The brute power was still there, but it was merely an addition to the impact of the new hull form. It was like comparing a war hammer to a great sword. Both can kill, but the great sword looks deadly just sitting there. From her needle like prow to her expanded shuttle bay, Ulysses fell in love with her from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Even unpowered and sitting in her construction slip, she possessed a naked lethality. And she was his in a way none of his other commands could have been. He was her first master, meaning that he would mold her crew into his vision of what a crew should be.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Ulysses said to his officers who had stopped dead in their tracks upon getting their first clean look at their new ship, "I give you your new home, the ISS Valley Forge, NCC 4045-B. She's a Wraith class upgrade, which means she's faster and meaner than any other Super Dreadnought in space. For STL engines, she has Borg drives instead of impulse. This makes her both slightly faster and considerably more maneuverable in normal space. Max rated STL speed of 77 PSL with a maneuver class of 3 (putting it on par with a Sovereign). And with no massive impulse engine housings to target, she'll be able to hang in a fight a lot longer without taking drive damage. Standard layout of quad slipstream cores mated with four more powerful nacelles, enabling us to keep pace with a Soulwolf in slipstream. New, more knife like hull form also contributes to the higher speed.
Triple foreword and single aft Phaser Lance Mk 2's, One front and back down the centerline, one on either side of the foreword primary hull 30 degrees off centerline. Standard fore and aft Heavy Photon Torpedo tube but with extended magazine space thanks to the widened secondary hull. Four foreword burst fire Quantum Torpedo turrets, two on the dorsal primary hull, two on the ventral primary hull. Two aft burst fire Quantum Torpedo turrets nestled aft of the nacelle hull joints. 25 Phalanx Torpedo/dual Pulse Phaser Cannon turrets scattered strategically across her hull. And last but not least, 22 Type XV Phaser arrays for primary armament.
Phase cloaking ability, along with standard cloak and holographic chameleon skin. Mk 5 ECM Drones, Holographic Main and Flag bridge command displays. She's got extra Ablative Armor and Mk 2Ablative Armor Generators. Newest Shield generators with nearly double the output of the old ones. You all have a week to come fully up to speed on all her systems, because in just over a week, well be taking her out for her space worthiness trials. Now that you have seen the outside of her, let's see the inside shall we?" Ulysses said, then started walking down the spoke again. After half a pause, the rest of his senior officers followed him. All of their eyes greedily took in their new ship as they walked towards her.