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Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-06-20 05:51pm
by Lord Revan
This is a story involving my STO federation character, however I've taken some liberties where needed (like most aliens having true personalities and not stereotypes and humans not all having pure and noble personalities).

Please do note that english is my second language so any corrections are welcome if given in a constructive manner, also the first chapters are probably gonna be mostly character stuff and thus somewhat slower.

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Chapter 1
Admiral Zinil Shimon was furious, she was suppose to be overseeing the repairs and upgrading of her ship, instead she was forced to attend the courtmartial of Lieutenant Jackson, even though the need for disipline actions actions against him was undisputeble, indeed if anything Shimon had been overly mercifull in her judgement, a trait not that common in andorians. The defense Jackson's father a rear admiral in Starfleet HQ had made, would have been silly in it's sexism and self-entitlement had he not thought that it was a serious and acceptble defense for his son's actions.

The preciding JAG officer was a male vulcan admiral whose name Shimon couldn't remember at this moment and since this was wartime the standard introductry speeches had been skipped, the vulcan judge was looked as his PADD and then spoke, "this is the review of the displine actions again lieutenant James Franklin Jackson for actions unbecoming of a starfleet officer"

" 'unbecoming of starfleet officer', that was an understatement" Shimon thought, Lieutenant Jackson had forced female crewmembers to perform sexual favors for him and used his father's position to get away with that and the fact that he was constantly leaving his post on board the Helsinki for no good reason, you didn't leave your post to have a drink at the officers mess hall when on duty, how Shimon had managed to give him just 10 days of being confinied to quaters and reduction in rank to Ensign mystified her. Admiral Jackson had tried to imtimidate Shimon into giving his son a free pass, but it didn't work since dispite being stationed at Starfleet command Jackson was just a rear admiral (lower half) and Shimon held the rank of Vice Admiral even if her current assignment was more like that of captain then a fleet commander

The judge adressed the proceding again "will the defence prepesent their argument as to why is court should overrule the disipline actions against lieutenant Jackson"

Shimon was raised to not judge a book by it's covers but admiral Jackson looked exactly like the entitled scum who would more conserned about making sure his son could run the ship he stationed as like personal plesure yath even though he was not even close to being the commander, then about making sure that rules of Starfleet were obeyed, when Admiral Jackson adressed the court he used a arrogant tone of a man sure he had already won.

"Friends, we all know why this woman has gotten her rank and position, I mean look at her could there be any other way for achivive that and now that she's faced with a real man she tries to destroy my son's career out of jelousy"

"Admiral Jackson do you have any evidence for the accusation that Lieutenant Jackson was in any way treated differently?" the judge asked

"Isn't my word enough?" came the reply

Shimon took a deep breath trying to not show her anger, while why she had her current position and rank was clear it wasn't what this scum had implied, indeed it had nothing to do that she was female and reasonly attractive. her meteoric rise thru the ranks had raised some dout, most of it was asking in she was experienced enough for the stress of a flag rank and not her gender, indeed the implications in Admiral Jackson's words were disrespecting the memory of every single one of the friends Shimon had lost.

The Judge seem to agree as though he betrayed no emotion in his words the look he gave admiral Jackson was pure hatred "The United Federation of Planets and by extension Starfleet is founded on the princible of equality, as the defense has no evidence for their accusations, I find their logic to be insuffient to repel the orginal disipline actions. do you wish to add anything admiral Shimon".

"I have nothing to add" Shimon stated

the Judge look at his PADD again "Admiral Jackson, Admiral Riker wishes to discus your involvement in this matter, he told me that you should report to his office as soon as we're done here , this review is over then, live long and prosper"

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-06-30 10:57am
by Venator
You know, as much as the idea of an officer raping his shipmates and his misogynistic fuckface daddy trying to sweep it under the carpet, it's simultaneously very refreshing to see Federation - particularly Human - characters that are something other than cardboard-cutout paragons of virtue.

I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
Please do note that english is my second language so any corrections are welcome if given in a contructive manner, also the first chapters are probably gonna be mostly character stuff and thus somewhat slower.
For someone ESL your writing is a lot better than many native speakers I've seen - the only thing I can think to add is the odd grammar polish that makes dialogue flow more realistically, main example:

""Admiral Jackson, Admiral Riker wishes to discus your involvement in this matter, he told me that you should report to his office as soon as we're done here , this review is over then, live long and prosper""

Versus,

""Admiral Jackson, Admiral Riker wishes to discus your involvement in this matter. He told me that you should report to his office as soon as we're done here. This review is now over - live long and prosper.""

Choice of how you do it is author's prerogative :).

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-06-30 11:12am
by Lord Revan
Venator wrote:You know, as much as the idea of an officer raping his shipmates and his misogynistic fuckface daddy trying to sweep it under the carpet, it's simultaneously very refreshing to see Federation - particularly Human - characters that are something other than cardboard-cutout paragons of virtue.

I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
Please do note that english is my second language so any corrections are welcome if given in a contructive manner, also the first chapters are probably gonna be mostly character stuff and thus somewhat slower.
For someone ESL your writing is a lot better than many native speakers I've seen - the only thing I can think to add is the odd grammar polish that makes dialogue flow more realistically, main example:

""Admiral Jackson, Admiral Riker wishes to discus your involvement in this matter, he told me that you should report to his office as soon as we're done here , this review is over then, live long and prosper""

Versus,

""Admiral Jackson, Admiral Riker wishes to discus your involvement in this matter. He told me that you should report to his office as soon as we're done here. This review is now over - live long and prosper.""

Choice of how you do it is author's prerogative :).
Thanks for the comment tbh I've trying to figure out how to write the next part as the Jackson family won't be seen after first chapters as they're used to show what kind of person the main character is like as this story is built around an STO mission and thus later the flow will be dictated by that mission to a degree.

also vulcans are pain in the arse to write for, since as an emotional human it's hard to write dialoge that's free of overt display of emotions but doesn't seem stilted

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-06-30 11:38am
by Venator
There's a reason Fox from story is half-Vulcan leaning more to the "half-" side than the "-Vulcan" one :P.

They really can be tough to write, but I think the biggest thing is to think of Spock - despite Enterprise's (and to a degree Voyager's) attempts to reduce the race to Borglike automatons, they're just un-emotional people, rather than wooden or perma-angry.

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-06-30 05:51pm
by LadyTevar
The Judge seem to agree as though he betrayed no emotion in his words the look he gave admiral Jackson was pure hatred "The United Federation of Planets and by extension Starfleet is founded on the princible of equality, as the defense has no evidence for their accusations, I find their logic to be insuffient to repel the orginal disipline actions. do you wish to add anything admiral Shimon".
Big run-on sentence that could be cut into several smaller, more understandable ones.
me wrote:"The United Feredation of Planets, and by extension Starfleet Command, is founded on the princible of equaity of all species, regardless of nature or gender. Since the Defense has no evidence that the decision was made improperly, I find there is no Logic to reversing the Court's decision to strip Lt. Johnson back to Ensign."

"Admiral Johnson, you have been asked to report to Admiral Riker's office as soon as this inquiry is concluded. Gentle-beings, this review is over. Life Long and Prosper."

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-07-29 03:51pm
by Lord Revan
just to update this story isn't dead I've just been too busy to work on it atm.

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-10-10 05:16pm
by astrospace2020
interesting story so far, lets see what will happen next .

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-10-10 06:05pm
by Lord Revan
when I said these first few chapters would be slow I meant in pacing not in writing but I've had other issues that have taken up my time so I've not been able to work on this one, but I've not done with this yet you just have to wait a bit longer for me to be able to get on with in, my apologies

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2014-10-12 01:30pm
by lord Martiya
We'll patiently wait for the rest, then.

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-01-12 02:57am
by Lord Revan
Sorry for the long delay between chapters, I've had tons of things in real life that prevented me from working on this.
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Chapter 2

Admiral Shimon gave out a large sigh as she looked at the pile of PADDs on her desk. After the trial she had taken a nap and shower, while refressed she still didn't find the amount of PADDs encouraging, a fact not helped that due to a bullshit directive each report had to be on its own PADD rather then being sent to her personal terminal.

As Shimon was trying to find an excuse to not do the paperwork the door chime rang.

"Enter" she said

the person entering was the chief engineer of the Helsinki, a human male of japaneese desent, Shimon called him "chief" or by rank as her attempts at pronouncing his last name could be best described as a one woman assault against the japaneese language.

"Excuse me admiral, if you were in middle of something I can return later" the newcomer said

Shimon wondered what had made him say that, but then she noticed she was wearing nothing but her underwear and a T-shirt, "I'll be there in just a moment" Shimon said as she went back in her bedroom to finish dressing.

"I just came from the shower and I guess I got too focused on worrying about my work that I forgot to put my pants on and chief you can call me 'captain' there reason to be overly formal"

At least she was wearing something this time Shimon thought as she put on the pants for the duty uniform, she wouldn't need the jacket for paperwork, the old dress uniform she had worn for the trial hung nearby ready to be taken to be cleaned in case she would need it later, though as with duty uniform she had been issue a new dress uniform and those had been delivered while she was at the trial.

"You had something to report chief?" Shimon said as she stepped back out of the private portion of her quaters.

"The repairs and upgrades on the Helsinki are more or less done now." chief said "There's some minor calibrations I'd like to do on the advanced FTL systems before we use them but standard warp is avaible, still I'd recomend that we won't use the Transwarp or Slipstream drives before I'm done"

"What's the worst case scenario in case we have to use Transwarp" Shimon asked

"Realistically in worst case scenario we should only burn out the Main Deflector dish preventing FTL until it's repaired, I've already requisitioned the spare parts needed should that happen" the engineer responded "still that would mean we would be stuck in low sublight speeds for at least a day while we were repairing the Dish".

"Thank you commander, that'll be all for now then, I'll inspect the ship once I'm done with these" Shimon said pointing vaguely at the PADDs laying on her desk

Admiral Shimon let out sigh as she started to work thru the massive amount of paperwork that had been piled on desk in her assigned quaters at Earth Spacedock, while the Helsinki was being repaired and updated.

Most of it was pretty routine and more of a formality then anything else, with reports on progress of the repairs and replacement crew, nothing out of the ordinary really. Still Starfleet insisted that Shimon approve of these reports, though in practice her approval was already granted and it's more of a way to double check that the Helsinki had everything needed.

The USS Helsinki was a Prometheus-class variant that while did not have an official name was unofficially called the "Artemis-class". The multi-vector assault mode of the standard Prometheus was replaced with the Artemis advanced combat system, which gave the variant it's unofficial name, this system was designed to better detect and target cloaked or otherwise masked ships, to counter Klingon raiders using cloaked ships. The Helsinki was only surviving ships of the this variant with the other 3 having been lost due to various reasons.

The recent actions in the Solanea Dyson Sphare had caused quite alot of battle damage and the trip next to the star in middle of the sphare had not done any favors to systems of the ship even with the special shields. The Helsinki was built to hit hard, but wasn't built to take that much punishment in return so repairs were more then due also the rediscory on the Jenolan Dyson Sphare also heralded the return of the Undine and while the weapons and shield of the Helsinki were enough against the Voth they would need to be upgraded to combat this new threat.

This wasn't helped by fact that combination of battle casualties and the recent fiasko with Jackson had left the Helsinki with most of her 200 man crew being new arrivals, this shortage in the crew had probably been the sole reason why Jackson and his cohorts had not faced a transporter "accident" while returning to Federation space. Shimon preferred to do this according to Starfleet regulations but some times she had trouble keeping herself from doing rash calls and Jackon had enraged pretty much every female on board, so some crew members might feel that they had take justice to their own hands and Shimon knew she would have a hard time not justifying that in her mind.

Thankfully their orders would seem to allow the new crew to learn as it was little more then a routine patrol, a ship like the Helsinki was an overkill for this task especially since the patrol route did not take them near the romulan or klingon borders so it would unlikely that they face any of the newer KDF or Romulan ships. Most of the time patrols like these would be taken by Miranda or Sabre class ships though some older cruisers might be used as well. The biggest threat Shimon suspected to find would a older B'rel class bird of prey trying do a sneak raid into federation space to get prestige in the KDF ranks, but smugglers or pirates would be more likely if even them.

It seemed like Starfleet Command wanted Shimon to be ready if Rear Admiral Tuvok needed helped with the Jenolan conference he had planned to host.

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-01-29 09:50pm
by Lord Revan
Chapter 3
After delivering the finished paperwork to Fleet Admiral Quinn's office. Shimon desided to take a shuttle to the Helsinki this would allow her to visually inspect the ship, while she had trained as a Tactical Officer and such her knowlage of engineering was limited to the few compulsury courses every Starfleet cadet had to take.

As far as she could see the battle damage from recent operations against the Voth had been repaired and there was no construction crews around the ship. It would feel good command the the Helsinki again, as during the Undine assault against the Jenolan Dyson Sphare, Shimon was forced to take temporary command of the USS Dyson. This also meant she was vital at stoping the Enterprise, Lleiset and Bortasqu' from starting a war over the Dyson Sphare.

Shimon open a channel to the Helsinki "This Spacedock shuttle 247 to Helsinki, requesting premission to dock"

"premission granted, welcome back captain" said the head of security of the Helsinki a saurian female By the name of Peckingo.

As the shuttle landed Shimon noticed that as per her request there no welcome ceremony, just a pair of security escorts. Said escorts followed Shimon when she stepped out of the shuttle and into the turbolift

"Main engineering" Shimon said.

Once the lift had stopped at the engineering deck, Shimon headed to main engineering to start her inspection of ship operations, the main engineering was larger then in other ships of this size to accomidate the larger warpcore needed to power the 6 heavy phaser cannons that made up the primary weapons of the ship.

"Is everything in order commander" Shimon asked her chief engineering, "looks like it captain" chief replied "though we're still having some issues with the advanced FTL systems, though I think we might discorved problem and it should fixed ASAP"

"Good carry on then" Shimon said as she checked the consoles for dust. "thank you sir and before I forget Doctor T'Bumu wanted to see you as soon as you're able" Chief said as he went back to work.

Doctor T'Bumu was the ship's Vulcan chief medical officer and a recent arrival. Shimon didn't exactly relish having to meet her as vulcans and andorians still didn't get along that well. While the previous chief medical officer had also been a vulcan female, Shimon had been to the academy with that one so they knew each other alot better.

Shimon walked back to the Turbolift, she would first brief the bridge crew of the new mission then see the good doctor, "deck 1, bridge" she said.

Deck 1 of the Helsinki was the bridge module while the same size on the outside as the standard module for Prometheus-class ships, the actual bridge was different using a defiant-class inspired design. "Commander Flores, I assume you got our patrol route from Starfleet Command" Shimon said as she entered the bridge.

Commander Elisa Flores was the first officer of the Helsinki and was a former academy class mate of Admiral Shimon. Indeed Commander Flores had been the tactical officer on the ill-fated training mission that had made Shimon acting captain when a group of Klingon raiders had killed captain Taggart After defeating the klingons that ship, also named the Helsinki, in fact Shimon's current ship was named in honor of Taggart's ship, had become involved in the borg attack on the Vega Colony. So much had happend since then that it felt like decades had past but in truth probably not even a whole year had past since that mission.

Though thankfully 2410 seemed to bring less klingon raids then previous years with first the Borg, then Voth and now the Undine threat taking the Klingon Empire's attention away from fighting the Federation. To such extent that there was in practice an unofficial cease-fire in effect as both sides of this long and bloody conflict had to focus on greater threats to the Alpha Quadrant.

"Yes captain, our course is set and we go warp as soon as we clear the Spacedock." Commander Flores' word woke Shimon from her remissence "Just give word and we will on our, way captain"

"Commander, I assume you pilot the ship out of spacedock without my assistance" Shimon said "Our new doctor wanted see me, so I'll be in sickbay if you need me and please inform me if Admiral Tuvok contacts us." with those words Shimon headed back the turbolift and to sickbay.

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-01-31 07:27pm
by Lord Revan
It would nice if people could comments, suggestions, productive criticism about the story if they're reading it

Also I'm taking some liberties/simplications when it comes to the hardware configuration of the Helsinki so no point in trying to guess my in-game build from this story.

still without futher comment here's the next chapter

EDIT:I've merged some of the chapters since I orginally posted this as the orginal chapters were rather short, please tell me what you think of the current lenght if you're reading this story
_______________________________
Chapter 4
As the turbolift stopped at the deck for the sickbay, Admiral Shimon touched her left shoulder instinctively, there was small scar there, from a ferengi phaser. While modern medicine could have easily removed that scar as it was only about the size of a finger nail, Shimon had desided to keep it as reminder to be careful on missions. While Shimon had been in the academy. It had been year 2407 or 2408 she couldn't remember, a group of ferengi smugglers had desided to break into the Starfleet Academy armory and sell their loot in black market. That plan had been doomed from the start as Earth was one of the most secure planet in the Federation, how ever these Ferengi atypically seemed to have more bravery then brains. Needless to say they triggered the alarms, alerting campus security.

However for some reason security was understaffed during that day so a group senior cadets from the tactical branch had been called in to support them, Shimon had been part of that group. A fire fight resulted when the smugglers didn't want to surrender, Shimon under estimated the opponents and one of the Ferengis was able to land a glancing hit on her shoulder with a hand phaser

The smugglers had been broke, probably the reason they thought raiding a Starfleet armory on earth would be a good idea and that hand phaser was badly in need of maintenance. Because of that the phaser wound had become infected and had they not been at Earth that infection might had been leathal. Once she had recovered from the infection, Shimon had made a promice to herself to not get complecent on a mission again and had kept the scar as reminder of that promice.

Shimon entered the main sickbay.

Doctor T'Bumu was a dark skinned Vulcan female, though her skin wasn't as dark as Admiral Tuvok's. The doctor looked middle aged, meaning she was well over 100 years old, possibly even close to 200.

"You have finally arrived captain" doctor T'Bumu said "it is most illogical of you to delay your medical checks like this"

Shimon could help but smile at that comment, the new doctor was definetly a vulcan for sure.

"Can we get this over with as quickly as possible doctor" Shimon said "I have plenty material to study about klingon and romulan law if I'm to be of any help to admiral Tuvok"

"I wil see what I can do captain" the doctor replied "but it would not be logical for me to perform my duties poorly or with undue haste". Doctor T'Bumu picked up a medical scanner from the nearby table and started to take scans."There is one thing I'd like to ask of you, a question of personal nature?"

"Oh, what is it" Shimon asked, though she could probably guess what the question was. "Those rumors about you and commander Flores" doctor T'Bumu replied.

"They're false" Shimon said with a smile, she had been right about the question. "While I wouldn't say the commander is unattractive, she's only a good friend. A friend I've know since the academy but still only a friend. Some people seem to mix their fantasies with the thruth, that's how I assume the rumors got started"

"That sounds like something that could happen" T'Bumu said "most illogical but then that's how most sentient species are".

"Your scans are fine captain, all according to the norm for a healthy Andorian of your age and gender"

"Thank you doctor and is the new EMH working as intended I know the old one got fried during the Dyson Sphare operations" Shimon said, EMH stood for Emergency Medical Hologram. A type 2 hologram program used in case the current medical staff wasn't suffient to treat the number of the patients.

Type 2 Holograms were semi-sentient with limited learning protocals, all emergency holograms were of this type so they were able to perform more complex tasks without constant supervision unlike type 1 holograms that were totally non-sentient and could performs task they were specifially programmed for. Though one EMH mark 1, the one installed orginally onboard the USS Voyager and called "the Doctor" by the crew had become fully sentient. Fully sentient holograms were called type 3 and were for the most part treated like any other sentient.

"It is working as intended captain" the Doctor replied

with that resolved Shimon exited the sickbay and was heading to her quaters when the intercom sounded "Yellow Alert, captain to the bridge!"

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-02-04 12:11am
by Lord Revan
oh and as an after note I intend to depict Shimon as bisexual but at this point not wishing to be in a relationship (so it's in the background but that's it)

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-02-05 08:44pm
by Lord Revan
Chapter 5
"what is it?" Shimon asked when she entered the bridge

"we are reading an unidentified freighter attempting to prevent anyone from detecting their warp signature" said the science officer a former borg drone everyone called "Tim" after a joke Commander Flores had made.

"Probably smugglers , captain, though it's also possible they're pirates" Flores stated. "Hail them" Shimon said as she sat on the captain's chair.

"channel open captain" said the operations officer a bolian commander by the name of Mad Sohra. "This is the federation starship Helsinki, you're ordered to drop out of warp, lower your shields and surrender your vessel of inspection, comply or we will be forced to take action" Shimon stated, the resemblence to the Borg standard hail made her gringe at her words.

the captain of the freighter was a male member of a minor species externally almost identical to humans, "You're Starfleet and a female as well, what are you gonna do if I don't feel like doing what you said, send a meakly worded protest". With those words he terminated the link making clear that he wasn't about to comply.

Due to recent events Shimon had even less patience then normal for sexists, but even without it one should taunt Andorians if you're not prepared for a fight. "Give me tactical control and helm prepared to drop out of warp when they do" Shimon said while stepping to nearby bridge station.

The Helsinki fired a single photon torpedo at the Freighter, hitting the ship near the warp drive causing it drop out of warp. I had been risky as the attack could have also caused the warpcore to breach and destroy the Freighter with a single shot but Shimon had noticed that the Freighter had military grade shields.

While Helsinki had dropped dropped out of warp almost the same time, its inertia had forced the Helsinki in front of the freighter. The Outlaw captain not wanting go down quitely opened fire. The barrage of phaser beams would have been a major threat for the frigates or outdated cruisers that normally did these patrols, but the Helsinki was a front line ship and firepower was deflected by rear shields.

"rear shields down by 10% captain" said commander Sohra.

Shimon gave a sigh, there was no way the freighter could win this fight but she wasn't about it let them go either. "Tactical target their weapons and engines, we don't have destroy them" Shimon ordered. Using the massive phaser cannons and the main beam array Commander Flores who was also the ships tactical officer easily overpowered the freighter's shields and turned its engines and weapon arrays in half molten wrecks.

"Send a MACO strike team secure the ship after that send in a specialist away team, to see what were they carrying that they felt opening fire on a Federation ship was worth the risk" Shimon ordered. "and Inform Starfleet of what has happend

Shimon and Flores joined the away team as it beamed into the wrecked freighter.

"I will not be bossed around by females who don't know their place" ranted the freighter captain to the MACO team "release me at once I com...". He wasn't able to finish his sentence as Shimon Slammed him hard against a cargo container. "It's illegal to try mask your presence from federation authorities so I have every right to apprihend you" Shimon said "now be quiet and for your sake I hope a sensor jammer is the only illegal item we will find here".

"Captain you might want to see this" Said Dathan a Vorta biochemist who had joined the Helsinki crew as an apology after a recent incident with the Dominion. Shimon noticed he seemed more pale then normal "What is it" she asked. "If my readings are correct there's Thalaron weapons in this crate" the vorta replied. Shimon quickly took her own tricoder and scanned the crate in question and sure enough the result didn't just show thalaron weapons but alot of them, enough to wipe out a large city.

Thalaron weapons were banned by pretty much every goverment in the alpha and beta quadrants and those that didn't still wouldn't use them. Horriffic would be major understatement to describe the effects of thalaron radiation and it was 100% leathal.

the Freighter's manifest said the it was heading for cardassian space, while the Cardassian Union wouldn't even pretend about thinking to use thalaron weapons the terrorist group True Way was another matter all together. the True Way was a group of former Cardassian military members who longed for the time when cardassia held the whole quadrant in fear due their alliance with the Dominion. Though they were not that popular even among the cardassian.

"Admiral Shimon, the USS Justicar has arrived to handle things from here" the communication onboard the Helsinki said "Admiral Tuvok told to contact him as soon as you're able to for new orders".

Re: Path to Peace (Star Trek)

Posted: 2015-02-21 03:50pm
by Lord Revan
Chapter 6
Admiral Shimon hoped that her new orders didn't involve chasing down smugglers, as smugglers counted as civilian targets and therefore you couldn't just blast them into oblivion. It was always a risk to open fire of civilian ship.

If one used the Helsinki's 6 heavy phaser cannons anywhere close to maxium potential what would have been left of the freighter would fit a single cargo container and that wasn't desireble at all. While she had been justified in opening fire when the smuggler ship had failed to stand down for an inspection, there was a world of difference between "shoot to disable" and "blow into spacedust" when it came to handling civilian targets.

Also Shimon could have been a bit less rough when handling the freighter captain, while techinically within the Starfleet regulations some admirals could have used it as an excuse to relive her of command, well that was before the Thalaron weapons were found. Now there was very little sympathy found for the smugglers.

Shimon sat down in her ready room and keyed the com console. "Get admiral Tuvok on the line" she said "he did say that there were new orders for the ship"

Admiral Tuvok was an older dark-skinned male vulcan, he had been the tactical officer for the USS Voyager when the ship had been lost in the Delta Quadrant 34 years ago, The Voyager returned to Alpha Quadrant 7 years later. It was during those seven years that Voyager met the Undine or species 8472 as they were know then for the first time and as such was the first Starfleet ship to come in contact that with them. After that time the Undine had tried several times to infiltrate the Alpha Quadrant and posed a serious risk now that they had seem to have returned in force.

"Greetings Admiral Shimon" Tuvok said "I assume you have heard by that I intend to hold an conference to discuss how to deal with the undine threat to the alpha and beta quadrants, this conference is to be held at the Jenolan dyson sphere"

"Isn't the ownership of the Jenolan sphere uncertain though?" Shimon asked

"That is correct" Admiral tuvok replied "however I belive that the matter of the undine threat is more important at this time and your expertise on the matter would be most welcome"

"I undertand. There are few who have met the undine in combat and even fewer who have that and experience of the situation with the Jenolan sphere" Shimon stated "I will support your position on this matter, let the diplomats sort out who can lay claim to the sphere after the threat of the undine have been delt with. Admiral Shimon out"

Shimon stepped to the bridge

"helm, set course for the Jenolan dyson Sphere"

"New orders?" commander Flores asked

"yes" Shimon said as she sat down of th captain's chair "we're to help admiral Tuvok convince the alpha quadrant powers that it's not wise start a war over who controls the Jenolan sphere with the undine still pose a threat to us all. Or more correctly that undine threat is large enough that it cannot be ignore over some pretty politics, the federation as enough problems as it is without adding to them."

"Commander Flores, I assume you fly the ship to our destination while I go study the details of the conference"

"of course captain" commander Flores replied

"very well, you have the helm then" Shimon said as she walked to the turbolift "I'll be in quaters, please inform me when we arrive at the Solanae space gate"

the Solonae space gate was massive iconian gateway in deepspace that acted as an access way to both the Solanae and Jenolan dyson spheres and thru the Jenolan sphere as quick way into the Delta Quadrant. the Space gate and the Solanae sphere were under the control of an alliance led by Romulan Republic and as such they had claim to the Jenolan sphere as well. The federation had been the first to discover the Jenolan sphere and it infact named after the USS Jenolan that first discorved the sphere. As for the Klingon Empire well they laid claim to sphere cause, in their own words the federation had become too powerful. Granted too powerful here probably meant too hard to conquer. As for why the Klingons didn't accept the romulan claim well the Romulan Republic would most likely allow Starfleet to use and study the sphere and the Klingons preferred that to not happen.