Chapter 2

Old friend's new directions

As the pair of them materialized onboard a bridge of a start ship the first thing that Nathan noticed was the design and layout of the bridge, it was indeed more advanced then the Illustrious to which he left two years earlier. The impressive banks of displays behind him and the up-to date computer displays showed that this vessel was designed for one thing, combat, and he thought the days of building warships were behind Starfleet.

"Well welcome onboard Nathan" the Admiral said softly, the bridge crew were all at their stations, and to boot standing at attention.

"What kind of bridge is this, it is modern, but I've never seen anything like this, it looks mainly like a battle bridge, but with hints of an older style."

They had appeared on the bridge section just below the captains chair, in front of them were the com and ops station, they were in a well of sorts, five stations were dotted around otter wall of the bridge, and next to the door way was her registration plate USS Illustrious, as he saw this his mouth slowly opened, he was back, back on his ship but what had they done to her?

"Welcome home Nathan" the Admiral simply said; "If you'd follow me into the ready room Nathan, we have things to discuss."

The two men walked silently off the bridge; the ready room was a room that he'd used many times before during the war, now like the bridge this too had received a major overhaul. It had a crisp new feel and look to it, the only thing that hadn't changed was a plaque that he'd had made four years before, it was within the darkest days of the war, and he'd needed something for the room, a message or glimmer of hope in the ever increasing darkness that was surrounding them. It was a simple message that had been carved into a peace of hull plating of a Jem'Hada ship, the inscription simple read "Old friend's new directions". This was referring to all that had been lost, all the crew's friends, family and others, and the new directions was onwards to victory and away from defeat. From the day the plaque went up into the ready room, things started to change for the better. And so it was a nice omen to see his sign still here, he looked up at it once more and smiled.

"We had to leave it in, its part of the ship's mantra, its also part of the soul of the ship, the ship may of changed and been refitted, but, at the heart of the ship she still remains the same. Please sit down I have something more to tell you, more to tell you that I couldn't when we were at your house."

"What I'm about to tell you, will bee off the recorded, if you refuse the offer that I make to you, I have a doctor on stand by and you will have your mind altered to remove the memories and the conversation that we are having now. At any time you can stop, and that will be the end of it

But if you hear me out, and you like what I offer you, I will re activate you from retirement and also place you within the black ops once again. Do you understand me Nathan?"

"Yes sir I do."

"Do you wish to hear more?"

"Yes Sir I do"

"Good, things after the war are as you well know not good, we lost a lot of ships, men and resources, as did the Klingons and the Romulans."

Our sources have started to tell us of a threat building within the Romulan Empire that could open out into direct war with the federation, this is something that we don't need, or can ill afford."

"We need advantages, advantages that if need be, can be brought to bear on whom ever the attacking force is. We know the Romulan's have closed their boarders, and with the help of the klingons and some new technical that has been acquired in the delta quadrant, to which I will come to later. Can you recall on how I ordered you to surrender command of the Illustrious to a commander some time ago?"

Nathan nodded, the had often thought that it had been mighty odd, normally the decommissioning would of taken place at a star base or ship yards.

"We took the Illustrious, and aging Ambassador class vessel due for decommissioning as you well know. She was totally gutted her, refitted her with brand new and experimental equipment, in our view she is the most advanced ship in the fleet.

As far as the records show the ship has been assigned to deep space patrol, however Nathan your orders will come directly from me. Your own personal prime directives as it were, they are as follows."

"1/ The prime Directive is to be used at the Captains discursion, but if you break it, you better have a DAMNED good explanation why.

2/ You're to use what ever means are necessary to gain new technology, by trade or force.

3/ None of this mission brief must be discussed with anyone outside the command level of your crew."

This was going to the extreme, Nathan knew things were bad, but this bad?

He'd worked for Black ops in the war under Admiral Ross, and was use to extreme measures, but this; this had gone beyond everything he had done before in the war.

"I need to know Nathan, do you want to know more, or do you want me to make a call to the doctor to prep for surgery, and return you to your house by the river with no memory of what has happened her today, all you recall is that I come to look at your little boat and we had tea and talked of old times?"

"Admiral, I wish to know everything you have to tell me and more"

"So you shall Nathan"

Nathan hadn't felt so effused about anything since he took command of the Illustrious the first time round before the wars and the dark times of the federation, as he called them.

The Admiral tapped on the com panel in front of him, "Commander could you assemble all senior members of staff in the ready room in five minuets please."

"Of course Admiral" a familiar female voice replied.

This ship is fitted with hollow emitters throughout the ship and also we have taken the computer design to a more advanced level. As you are no doubt aware the Ambassador class after her refit had smaller versions of the Galaxy Class Isolinear Processing core. Although this was quite advanced with our new refit in mind we decided that the Illustrious this time would have installed a highly advanced bio-neural core, backed up with bio-neural circuitry which has improved computer response times, and also given us the chance to install the first ships AI.

"Computer, activate AI"

A moment latter a hologram formed in front of the two men she was human female some 5'9 in height and of medium build, long blonde hair which was pulled tightly back in a pony tail. She was dressed in a white dress uniform waist coat, which fastened over a grey under tunic. She has a com badge; however there was a lack of rank insignia.

"What is this?" asked Nathan, with a look of puzzlement.

"This is a holographic avatar of your ship's computer, she's called Cassandra, this is the first time she has been activated, and so requires the command codes and also the codes of the captain of her ship, and that's where you come in Nathan. I need you to be able to have the authority to assign ships to your aid if you need them.

"Computer this is Admiral Bill Ross, enter in the ships log that on star date 52200 Nathan Rothchild is re-enlisted and promoted to rank of Commodore, and given command of the USS Illustrious."

The Avatar still looking blankly forward spoke, "duly noted admiral, orders confirmed at this time command of the USS Illustrious NCC 10581 is transferred to Commodore Nathan Rothchild."

The Admiral offered his hand as Nathan took it, "Welcome back Commodore."

"Computer authorisation codes 899576 break alpha"

"Confirmed" the Avatar spoke, as she visibly relaxed and turned towards the two men, from how she was a moment or two she now look lucid and like any other member of the crew.

She smiled at the Admiral, and then spoke softly "I am Cassandra, the avatar of the ships computer"

"Cassandra please could you give the commodore a full run down of the replace bridge."

"Cassandra smiled then once more began to speak softly; as she did so a small holographic display of the bridge formed in front of the Commodore, that zoomed in to each place that was mentioned by Cassandra

"The Design of the bridge follows the standard Starfleet layout. All consoles and functions centre around the captain's chair in the middle of the circular room. The Illustrious command position faces the main forward view screen and follows the single chair style also seen on the Defiant and earlier Constitution-Class vessels. Directly in front of the commander's post is a lowered section containing an arc-shaped dual station for Helm functions and the Executive Officer's station. This forward panel, like the majority of those on the bridge, is a multifunction unit capable of providing control input and operations for a number of other ship's systems, such as communications and tactical.. In the event of an emergency, the entire Illustrious can be operated by just two officers posted at these stations.

To the immediate left and right of the centre seat are two standard Turbolift shafts, providing access to all decks of the ship; the door alcove to the left also features the Illustrious Starfleet dedication plaque, a traditional fitting on all Starfleet ships. This details the vessel's registration number, class, launch date and construction location."

Stopping she look at the Commodore who was watching the model turn and sway, he looked at her and spoke "Continue Cassandra"

"The Console's that are dotted around the bridge operate all major systems on the Illustrious. To the far right of the Centre seat is the Engineering Station, from here the Slip-Stream drive can be controlled, the Slip-Stream drive must be activated from here before being activated at the CONN. Next round from Engineering, just right from the Centre seat is the Security Station, were internal sensors, and many other security details are controlled from. At the back of the bridge situated to the right is Tactical, were weapons systems are controlled from. Directly at the back of Bridge is the ships schematic, which on the Illustrious has been pushed back a few paces so two doors can be fitted on either side, on leading to the Ready Room, the other going into the Observation Lounge. After the Schematic is the Intelligence Station, which is not normally included on the bridge of a Starship, but the Illustrious mission requires it to be. Still going Clockwise is the Operations Station, which is normally situated at the front beside the Helm has now been moved to the Back left of the bridge. At the front left of the Bridge is the Science Station.

This design of Bridge is used in the middle Section of the Illustrious all stations are the same as the Main Bridge on the saucer section. In the centre is the Command Chair, in the lowered section, directly in front of the Centre seat is the CONN, like on the Intrepid Class Starship the Helm stands alone at the front. Directly to the right of the Centre seat is the Security station, and to the left of the centre seat is the Engineering station, both of these stations the operator has to stand. The Turbolift is located directly at the back of the bridge, to the left of the Turbolift is Science station and to the right is Operations. To the left and right of the main view screen are small schematics of the middle section of the Illustrious these display damage reports"

"Commodore I have had the liberty of having a uniform replicated for you in the side room, I trust you will find it to your size". With that Nathan walked towards the doorway that lead to an adjoining room to get into a starfleet uniform, something he had not worn in the better part of two years.

With that she turned to the Admiral and spoke again, the senior crew are in the turbo life and will presently be here"

"Very good Cassandra, please take a seat and we will wait for the Commodore and the rest of the senior crew."

Few minuets later nine sat round the table as the Commodore walked out of the office in full uniform, he smiled at all present then smiled at the one person he was glad to see, she had served with him all the way through the war, and now here she was back onboard and by the looks of things a promotion to boot. As he sat down the Admiral stood up and spoke;

"May I introduce to you your new commanding officer Commodore Nathan Rothchild"

As the Admiral sat back down, Nathan stood up looking around at the new faces looking at him, it felt like old times, but this time he was not in the middle of a war, and this time, his ship had been through a full refit which he had to get use to.

"To these of you that don't know me I'm Nathan Rothcild, a fair man, I wouldn't ask you to do anything that I myself wouldn't do. I already now one of you, as you served with me through the war, and now old friends are brought back to the fold and ready to serve once more." He smiled, and then continued, "I'd like a full report of the upgrades of the Illustrious, including her shuttle craft, and other auxiliary craft."

First Commander seven of nine spoke, "As you are no doubt aware from the outside the ship looks more or less like a refitted Ambassador Class vessel, a heavy cruiser yes, but an older style. Something that wont attract too much attention, however on the inside things have changed an awful lot. As you can see from Cassandra sitting at this very table, the computer core was the first thing to be re-designed, for optimum performance, Cassandra can also be used off ship as well with the help of the newly developed mobile emitters brought back with us onboard Voyager."

Standing up the commander walked over towards the display screen on the wall, she touched the screen and a 3d holographic model of the Illustrious formed above the table. The weapons system were the next things to be upgraded, as you can see the 8 Phaser Arrays", on the model the arrays start to flash.

"As you can see these have been refitted with 8 type XII phaser arrays, in addition to this we have also fitted 4 pulse phaser cannon, two on the top side of the saucer section and two on the aft. In addition to this we have also replaced the ageing torpedo tubes with 2 Pulse fire quantum torpedo tubes forward and an additional 2 Pulse fire quantum torpedo tubes aft. Our projectile armament consists of photon torpedos, quantum torpedos and another item brought back by voyager, transphasic torpedoes. Not to mention of course ten tri col-bolt devices"

The model of the ship started to slowly rotate, as armour started to encase her as she was enveloped ablative armour activation plates.

"The armour itself has been modified to allow shields to function at the same time, thus given us an extra layer of protection, the shields of course is of a mutliphasic design"

As she clicked on the screen the model of the ship faded out and the chief engineer stood up, she made her way towards the monitor. The commander then took her seat and watched the engineers report.

"I with the help of the commander have completely gutted the warp core of this ship and have replaced the conventional warp core with a Quantum slip stream drive. As you recall from reading the reports from voyager about the experimental drive. This is how slip stream is formed."

She clicked on the screen and once again above the table a 3d model of the Illustrious Formed. As she began to explain the theories of slip stream the model acted as if jumping into slip stream.

"The slipstream is a narrowly-focused, directed warp field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum at the quantum level. It works by focusing a quantum field through a deflector dish to generate massive changes in local space curvature; this creates a subspace tunnel, which is projected in front of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. In order to maintain the slipstream a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish; however, the calculations involved are too complicated, and the time available too short, for current Starfleet technology. That was before the deployment of the bio neural computer core; if voyager had one onboard they would have had a lot more success with there tests"

The Admiral stood up next after the engineer had sat down, he looked at all the crew present and spoke "Some of this technology is advanced and in theory still in the testing stage, as in your Slip drive, and I am going to give you a shake down first mission. The Ambassador class was once one of the finest heavy cruisers that we had, and now with the new refit will be able to hold it's in any fight. Your mission is to go to the Romulan neutral zone; there have been attacks on small freighters and independent ships in that area. Every time Starfleet despatches a, and all they find is debris and not much of it, there are also very strange readings in this area, that have not been noticed in the pasted, there was also something else we found along with the debris from the destroyed ships, it seemed like one of them hit the attacking ship, and it lost some of its hull. We had it analyzed; it has a Romulan signature to it, as you know they were badly affected by the war losing quite a number of ships. We thought they'd lost quite a significant number of craft and resources, so it came as no surprise when after the war when they closed there boarders. However it now seems likely that they've gone back to there old ways and the question is what new equipment they have developed during the war." He said as he looked directly at the Commodore, "You orders are to rendezvous with the Starcroft, a small freighter that is running mining oar along the federation side of the boarder; you are to remain under cloak escort and protect the starcroft. Also within the area is the USS Astex, she like the Illustrious have had a significant engine over hall, installing the slip stream drive and the bio-neural computer core. If you need her call here in she will be waiting under cloak and the Astex and her fighters will be at your disposal."

"I understand sir" Nathan said is he looked at the admiral

"Also as of this time, the Astex is your escort, and as such will be accompanying you on certain missions."

"You have your orders Commodore, carry them out."

With that the admiral walked towards the doorway, and out of the room, around the table Nathan looked at his new crew and smiled.

"We have our work cut out for us."

"Dismissed", as the room emptied he watched all of the staff leave and called Cassandra over.

"Yes commodore" she enquired, "how may I help you?"

"I would like you to cross reference any type of new ships that were used by the Romulan's in the last days of the war, no matter is they are rumours hearsay or if they were actually sited."

"Understood commodore" as she spoke softly she turned and left the room, leaving the Nathan standing by the view screen looking at the lay out of this new Illustrious