The Voice of Su'Kal

drysonbennington

I thought I would have a little fun with the Su'Kal Prophecy.


...35 years after Su'Kal was rescued

The Voice of Su' Kal

Torches in their stands, stands that are seven feet tall and shaped like a tear, seven per side of the Great Path to Su'Kal, each depict their own life event of Su'Kal. A gentle breeze, much like a calming Spring affair, tussles and crackles each torch flame creating long shadows that dance off of the cave walls. Two watchful Flame Bearers per torch keep vigil eye over each torch, so as to never let the Light of Su'Kal go out.

The Great Path of Su'Kal, leading to the over hanging thrust carved out of the cliff , is seven slabs long. Each slab, measuring twenty feet wide and one hundred feet long, is perfect and without any time flaws of time. Walls and a path that were hammered and chiseled out by the followers of Su'Kal, out of their love for Su'Kal.

Seated around the thrust are the People of Su'Kal, adorned in light and dark brown clothing. Each one wearing a colored Shayla scarf that matches the region chosen for them by the Teacher. A thousand Kelpien, men, women, children, young and the old alike, bow their heads as the Teacher walks past them and towards the crème colored lectern of stone in the middle of the thrust. In front of the lectern is a large bowel shaped votive on a pedestal filled with liquid, the Star of Su'Kal. In front of the Star of Su'Kal is a raised stone pillar. On top of the pillar, nearly the size of a full grown adult Kelpien, is an oblong shape covered with a black cloth. On the cloth is the brightest star in the Kelpien night sky.

The Teacher, a tall Kelpien, 7 plus feet in height. steps up to the lectern and looks out across the Gathered. A calm, as quiet as a night of watching the stars, falls across the cavern, leaving only the sound of the wind in two darkened caves far below, to be heard.

"WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF SU'KAL!" bellows the voice of the Teacher through the cave and minds of the Gathered.

"Su'kal." the followers reply in a low tone.
"SU'KAL!" the Teacher says with raised arms.
"We are the People of Su'Kal"

Two of the Gathered, wearing dark cloth , one on each side of the aisle, strike large bells. The low drone of the bell resonated through the cave washing away the fear of the Gathered.
"It was today that Su'Kal was released from his prison in the Verubin Nebula." the Teacher continued.

"Su'Kal." replied the Gathered in a single warming voice.

Picking a book up from the lectern, the Teacher opens it and holds it high for the Gathered to see.
"It was today that Su'Kal faced his greatest fear, loneliness and defeated that fear." the Teacher says looking up into the night sky through the large portal above the Gathered. In the portal, the brightest star seen from Kaminar is transiting.

The Gathered, following the Teachers eyes, look up and reply, "We are the People of Su' Kal."
"It was today that Su'Kal brought us his voice, a power by which WE will conquer our own fears!"
"Su'Kal." reply the Gathered.

Moving down the steps of the podium towards the Star of Su'Kal, a Flame Bearer, clothed in black, emerges from the shadows and hands the Teacher a torch before returning to the darkness. The Teacher, looking out across the Gathered waits. The mass nods in unison. The Teachers nods in return before lighting the liquid in the votive. Flames leap from the votive, racing skywards before calming.
Handing the torch to the first of the Gathered seated closest, the Teacher reverently gives the Voice of Su'Kal to the Gathered. Each Kelpien utters the Voice of Su'Kal into the flame before passing it onto the next. Precisely seventy minutes later, the torch reaches the last of the Kelpien who have gathered. There it is handed off to a Flame Bearer who carries it down carved steps, far below the thrust and into the darkness.

The Teacher walks to the oblong object on the pillar and places both hands on it. The Gathered bow their heads and begin to hum. The Teacher watches. Each of the torch flames, wild and uncaring, slowly begin to burn with the same flicker.

"The joining has been achieved." the Teacher says with a smile. "Look up and to each other, the Light of Su'Kal."

Looking up at the torches and then at each other, the whispers in the eyes of each Kelpien could shake the very mountain they are in. The bells are struck again bringing the attention of the Gathered back to the Teacher.

"No more will Kaminar fall back into caves against the night! No more will OUR peoples be slaves to any other!" and with that, the Teacher pulls the covering away from the crème colored Kelpien torpedo casing.

"WE WILL BE HEARD!" the Teacher yells out to Gathered.

The low hum turns from reverence to out right shouts and cries as chants of "Su'Kal" echo in the mountain chamber. A chamber far away from any cities, lost in the roots of the forest. A place where only a child truly knows it is safe to play in.

"SU'KAL!, SU'KAL!, SU'KAL!"

Lost in the excitement of the roar of the Gathered, the first of seven Kelpien warships, approx. the length of one of Discoveries warp nacelles and half as wide as the upper saucer section and nearly the same draft as the secondary hull, ascends from the darkness far below the Teacher. The first one stops and hovers for the Gathered to see before continuing through the portal and into orbit around Kaminar.

The Gathered stand in awe, watching as each warship ascend before them. Looking out over the Gathered with jet black eyes, the Teacher bellows the name of Su'Kal.


The torpedo is the Voice of Su'Kal. A torpedo designed based on how Su'Kal's voice caused dilithium to become unstable and caused many star ships to explode due to misalignments in the warp core. Each Voice of Su'Kal torpedo has a micro warp drive as its power source that is aligned using dilithium crystals. When the torpedo is less than a 1,000 meters from its target, a voice resonator emits the Voice of Su'Kal at the same frequency when Su'Kal caused the Burn, but only enough to cause the dilithium in the casing to fracture, causing the micro warp core to explode in a brilliant flash of white light. One torpedo is always fired one after the other to reproduce the intensity of the the brightest star seen from Kaminar. A Voice of Su'Kal torpedo has a yield of approx. five times the standard yield of a Mark XII photon torpedo against a shield. Not overly powerful, the real power of the torpedo is when the Voice penetrates the shields of an enemy vessel and strikes the hull. Along with the explosive yield, the torpedo now sends a wave of charged particles through the ship along three vectors, cutting those vectors of the ship apart like a Kelpien pie. The three sections of the ship then phase out of time and then back into time anywhere from two to five million kilometers away from the ships original location.

"Su'Kal."


What might a Kelpien Attack Cruiser look like?

Rough sketch of a Kelpien Attack Cruiser

The Shuttle Bay Hangar sits above the Main Bridge slightly and is of through-hangar design that allows shuttles to enter from the fore of hangar bay and exit aft.

The Cargo Bay extends to just under the Main Bridge on the lower side of the Primary Hull/Crew Quarters. The Cargo Bay has enough volume to hold 150 Kelpien Ground Forces (including 10 ground assault vehicles) or 450 Gathered Pilgrims or 1,000 emergency medical isolation units. When being used as a rescue ship, the primary weapons do not function due to the energy needs of the EMIU's. When used as a colonial construction vessel, the cargo bay can carry enough Kelpien workers and materials to construct a 500 occupant Thrust ( type of Kelpien village where the Kelpien's occupy gradually higher elevations while the Teachers reside in the center
on the lowest elevation.) A typical Kelpien Attack Cruiser can also transport supplies for five Thrusts at a time in her cargo bay. The Cargo Bay section is also where the seven retractable landing struts and pads, three along the port and starboard sides of the Cargo Bay and one at the fore section of the Cargo Bay, are stored prior to making landfall.

Shuttle Bay : The standard compliment of shuttles that are carried is comparable to two, Type -8, two Type - 7, two Type-6 and four Type -15 Federation shuttle crafts of Kelpien design. Armament of the shuttles is unknown.

During colonial Thrust construction missions all but the four Type -15 shuttle craft are removed and replaced with Kelpien Atmospheric Construction Vehicles that are similar to Federation Work Bees and Sphinx Workpods. A KAC can carry as many as 35 Atmospheric Construction Vehicles in both the shuttle bay and cargo bay.

Other than the fabled, single Voice of Su'Kal torpedo launcher positioned at the fore of the vessel that is capable of firing her full compliment of 45 Wave Resonator Torpedoes in under 15 minutes, each KAC mounts 8 disruptors. Four are forward of the torpedo launcher, upper and lower. Two are mounted on the dorsal side of the Boom directly behind the aft shuttle bay shroud and one is mounted in Cargo Bay hull. One facing forward and one aft. The drawback to the KAC disruptors is that each mount can fire a total of 35 shots before the disruptor capacitors discharge fully requiring at least five hours for the capacitor to fully recharge. The damage dealt by a single KAC disruptor mount, per shot, is equivalent to a single discharge of a standard Federation Type - XI phaser array for three seconds.

The Boom section, aft of the Shuttle Bay contains the Impulse Engines that face 90 degrees to port and starboard. Steerable vents allow the exhaust from the impulse engines to be directed in an 180 degree arc, allowing the ship to make very quick flight corrections while at full impulse power. When the ship is being used as an emergency rescue vessel, power from the disruptors and impulse engines are diverted to the EMIU's that reduces the maneuverability of the ship by half while at full impulse power.

The Boom itself contains four cranes and crane track that run the entire length of the Boom to just under the shuttle bay hangar doors as well as numerous jibs and hoists along with ten steerable tractor beam emitters for use in the construction of Thrusts.

drysonbennington

...some time later

The fervor of the festivities, several hundred feet below, echoes in the chamber of the Teacher. Watching the Gathering below through the arch top window carved out of the mountainside, the Teacher's mind swam, like waves lapping over one another in turbulently gently ocean. Ever since the coming of Su'Kal, the Gathered had rejoiced. No longer would they worry about their backs and the Ba'ul, those demons were far away in deep waters. The Gathered young and old, were no longer scared of them and the slithering arms that had taken some many Kelpien to a watery death, to be consumed, as a falcon would a field mouse. Today was the start of a weeks long journey to the end of festivities honoring Su'Kal and the crews of the warships that Su'Kal had given to the faithful.

Turning away, the Teacher walks to a round, amber colored stone table in the middle of the study. Not overly embellished but still non-the-less, carved to perfection. Thick tomes, from all over the galaxy, Bolian, Breen, Vulcan and many others bound with ancient iron, line the shelves of the study. Candles flicker, their shadows disappearing into cracks in the wall. Much had to be done before the Great Journey was to begin. Sitting down, the Teacher sighed in joy. Today's study was on ancient Earth myth. The Kelpien's fingers turned the pages of the notebook, each time a different All Seeing Eye stared back.

"Ra, The Lidless Eye, The Eye of Providence, The All Seeing Eye of Ba'ul. So many different and distance places it has been to, so many civilizations it has remembered. All unique, but all the same." The Teacher thought quietly.

The dark gray waves rose, then receded and rose again, like the giant Falhu'al trees of the forest, before gently rolling into each other. Each wave becoming one and then two or three until becoming a single lap, perfectly folding under the light gray murkiness of the sky above them.

"I do not understand what you want me to do." the Teacher said peering out through the window and into the dream even deeper.

Far below, Kelpien's sang and lulled their children asleep with the harmonious intertwining of stringed and wind instruments accompanied by the subtle blowing into a Ghal'Ha shell. A song that the Teacher had instructed Kelpien musicians to play, perfectly. Every note from the Dream of Waves that the Teacher had been having. But not even the perfection of Su'Kal's Song had brought the entity in the Teacher's Dream yet, from far beneath the waves and or more dreadfully, steel talons from the skies above. The Teacher had calmed the ocean in the dream once before. It had lashed about wildly like a violent thunderstorm, but that was some thirty four years ago. The seas now lashed again. Each new note the Teacher pulled from the dream and gave to the musicians was played at the end of the previous note, but to no avail. The seas of the dream couldn't be calmed like they had been those many years ago. In that moment of youth the Teacher had sang a song to the dream that the Teacher had heard another Kelpien mother singing to her young. Her song had calmed the waves into a smooth ocean. Just as the Teacher woke, the island broke the surface of the water, only for a second, before disappearing below the surface again.

"There has to be something more, something that I am not doing correctly." the Teacher said as a large wave broke free from the others and headed in the Teachers direction.

The Teacher gasped for air as the waves rolled and over took the Teacher's vision. Another gasp and the Teacher's mind had returned from the dream to the flickering candles and the celebration below, the drowning sensation replaced by a melody of Ghal'Ha shells and stringed instruments being played.

The Teacher thought that something must had gone wrong with the playing of Su'Kal's song. An off note that had disturbed the entity in the dream.

"Tomorrow." the Teacher said in a tired voice. "But, for now it was almost perfect."

Standing up, the leader of the Gathered left the study for the warmth of the bed covers. But first the Teacher had to check the orb. Walking to the highly polished Yila, emerald colored stone, pedastool near the wall with a pitcher of Kelpien Tea sitting atop it, the Teacher stops at a cupboard to the left pedastool and removes an amber colored tumbler from it. Taking the pitcher in hand, the Teacher pours the tea into the tumbler till it is half full. Setting the pitcher back down in the center of the pedastool, the Teacher whispers a few soft notes of the consumption offering, then drinks. The instant tanginess is replaced by a crème texture after a few seconds as the chemicals in the tea mixes with the chemicals in the saliva of the Kelpien's mouth creating a smooth and calming effect. Setting the tumbler back on the pedastool, the Teacher walks to a small, wooden box that is ornate with Kelpien writing. Opening the box from the front, turquoise colored light dances across the bedroom and out into the night. The sound from the Gathered, far below changed from laughter and song to a low and gentled hum, like a perfect wind howling through the forest. The Teacher cups the orb in both hands and removes it from the box. The orb twists and turns in all directions, hovering slightly above the Kelpien's hands.

"My, how you have grown in the last week, our song must be your life's essence" the Teacher said. The fractured orb turns counter clockwise a few ticks and then clockwise once more before rotating at an angle and then differently again.

"Yes, you have grown indeed, Eye of Su'Kal." the Teachers says

The orb spins on its axis making several 360 degree circles before returning to its normal pattern of rotation.

"I know, we are trying. The song is difficult to master, but we are trying our best. We already have seven great warships. It won't be long now before we leave Kaminar on our Great Journey." the Teacher replies with a smile.

***

Slowing to a crawl on her maneuvering thrusts, the halfway finished new Starbase 10 orbiting Jupiter hangs in the emptiness of space on the Shiloh's main view screen.
"Approach control, this is the Shiloh. Requesting tether." Lt. Danear, a female Andorian and also the ships Senior Comm Officer says.
"Shiloh, you're cleared for tethering." replies the human male voice over the bridge speakers.
Returning his view from his Comms Officer to the mess of structural framework and Work Bees buzzing around the shaft of the starbase, Captain Robert Donovan, a Caucasian human male in his early forties, smiles as he watches the storms on Jupiter play in between the gaps of the unfinished starbase framework.
"Lock onto the closest tethering array Mr. Sunnaal." orders Donovan.
Chirps and beeps sound on the helm console as the helmsmen runs her fingers over it.
"Systems locked, tethering to array 57-A, Captain." replies thirty five year old Lt. Amber Green, the Shiloh's Senior Helmsmen, who is also Asian.
"Array 57-A, you have control." Donovan says instinctively while watching the Sphinx Work Pod transporting a section of the starbase, passes in front of his ship before disappearing under the saucer section.
"Affirmative Shiloh, enjoy the ride and welcome home." replies the tethering array.
"Shiloh confirms." Donovan replies as the invisible tether tractor beam positions his ship in between tangled mess of activity.
"I'm certain you could have gotten us in there." Donovan says to his helmsmen. "New rules though. No manual flying of the ship when the kids are playing outside."
"Aye Captain." replies Sunnaal in a, "I know could have", tone.

U.S.S. Shiloh NCC-222021, Vizzell Class Heavy Salvage/Recon Cruiser

She isn't the prettiest ship in space to look at, what she lacks in grace she more than makes up in the soul of her framework. After the Burn, thousands of starships, from all species lay in pieces across all quadrants. Hundreds of millions of tons in every alloy imaginable. Ship consoles, data cores, shuttles, phaser arrays, you name it, have been tumbling in space, monuments to the last moment of their crews. With all of the wrecked yet still workable salvage out there, Starfleet needed a ship that was built for heavy tractoring operations while at the same time representing Starfleet as a gunship capable of protecting the interests of the Federation while it climb its way out of the grave.

The Shiloh's job? Simple, use her advance sensors to track down the last known coordinates of a starship based on current Starfleet logs, tag the location with a beacon then tractor the wreck to a nearby salvage zone, which sometimes those zones were three weeks away at Warp One. Once the wreck had been delivered she would set off again to scout the remains of other wrecks or provide patrol escort to even larger salvage ships that were needed to phase torch the twisted structural members of a starship apart. The worst part of duty aboard a Vizzell class was recovery of the dead.

The first passage in the Captain's operations manual for a Vizzell Class Starship along with required reading for all Captains on the first day of entry into Captains school written by Commodore Anistasia Vizzell, Captain of the first salvage and recovery ship, Solar Dawn, pieced together with whatever Starfleet could find at the time.

"Tens of thousands of ships lay wrecked and destroyed, beyond any hope. The last moments of life in every hull, focused on daily duties, families, a mission, rehearsing a comforting song or holding a pet, sending a communique home. Unexpecting of anything that was about to happen. Gone in an instant.

You never forget your first dead crewmen. The look on her face after being frozen in space for 125 years. Seeing an entire ships crew like that, frozen for all time.

The staff of Starfleet and the Federation, snapped and broken in that instant. Dust settling on once vibrant colonies all across the galaxy, all lost in that moment, hope stranded. But as long as there is one person still wearing the Delta Arrowhead, the staff is but an arms length away from your hand. Starfleet and the Federation will be great once again. This is the vow of a salvage and recovery ship's Captain. Bring them home, all of them. For even thy enemy will know peace amongst us."

Ad astra per aspera, steady as she goes

-Commodore Anistasia Vizzell


Images of the Shiloh (Kitbashed from other models, not quite finished, ventral phaser
arrays should arrive, sometime next Tuesday)



Dorsal (top)



Ventral (bottom)



Bow (front)

In this image you can see the two photon torpedo launchers, two pulse cannons above the deflector dish and the four, forward facing phaser arrays above the pulse cannons. The pod above the bridge is the tractor beam, large array, and the Borg inspired cutting laser on top of the pod.



Aft (rear)
The vacant area behind the bridge, on the saucer section, is where the eight tractor beam array plus the material reconfiguration nanoprobe array will eventually be placed.



Port (left)

drysonbennington

"Tethers are at station keeping, Captain." Sunnaal says pressing several quick maneuvering thruster adjustments into her control panel.

Robert Donovan only smiled from his command chair as he watched the bulkhead of the hangar bay get closer and then stop within a few meters of being on the other side of it.

Several seconds later the bridge lights turn from a dull white operating glow to a deep blue color signalling the ship had been secured inside it's berth. Outside the Shiloh, three gangway structures extended from the half finished egg shell shaped hangar towards the Shiloh and then softly docking with each hatch on the Shiloh's docking ring section. While the Docking mechanisms of the Shiloh and hangar latched in place around each other, engineering teams monitored the seals for any imperfect connection. Lights flickered on inside each passenger corridor. Red location beacon lights on all four sides of the corridors began to pulse slowly at the same time.

"Looks like we're home people." Donovan says standing up. "Crew you are dismissed until further orders." While walking over to the the Science station where Mr. Percel, "People's Person" Tolliver, a 35 year old, black human male from Ohio sporting a Norwood 6 hairstyle, is running system checks and readying the cargo transfer, Donovan can't help but wonder how the last mission effected the crew. This had been the first recovery mission for twenty five new cadets, fresh out of the Academy.

"I'll see you in station." Danear says to Sunnaal as she enters the turbo lift positioned directly behind the Captain's chair and disappears.

"How many was it this time Percel?" Donovan asks quietly while crossing his arms.

Swiveling in the station chair, Tolliver runs his fingers across the console. A few seconds pass before the names of the dead that had been recovered began to scroll down the screen. Tolliver's fingers ran over the console again and a second later, the names appeared in indexed format. Human, Andorian, Klingon, Vulcan, Tellerite, Romulan, Cardassian, section headings appeared at the top of each LCAR box followed by a complete breakdown of species that had been recovered.

"250 humans, 175 of them Starfleet, 35 Andorians, 15 of them Starfleet, 75 Klingons, 26 Vulcans, 2 of them Starfleet, 19 Tellerite, 6 Romulans and 17 Cardassians, Captain." Tolliver replied. " Plus an additional 125 that will take further analysis to determine who they actually were and what species they are."

"Cargo haul?" Donovan asks looking over the black box of names on the screen.
"We took in..." But Tolliver is unable to finish as klaxons erupt on the bridge.

Reacting instinctively, Donovan presses a section on the the science console that brings up threat force schematic of the ship. Little green dots, security teams, scurry around digital layout of the ship like tiny ants in a colony.

"Cadet!?" Tolliver says sternly, as he instantly turns towards the Navigation console.

"No, right there, Cadet." Sunnaal says to the human female cadet, pointing to the Alarms button flashing on her console. "That one."

Sunnaal fires a staunch look across the bridge at Tolliver." I think we can handle this one, Mr. Tolliver." she says with a squint in her eyes

Sunnaal had beaten Tolliver by three points in the last promotion run, which had miffed Mr. Tolliver every since. None-the-less, Tolliver tried to exert his dominance over her any chance he got. Not the toxic masculinity dominance, more of the, "I have been around starships longer than you have." Which Tolliver, being the son of a Starfleet engineer had in fact been around starships longer than his superior.

"Why don't you just trigger a ship wide Red Alert..." Tolliver continues before being interrupted by a male voice over the bridge speakers.

"Is everything alright Shiloh? We have Red Alerts going off over the station."

Tolliver turns back to his monitoring screens, shaking his head.
Who is training these kids these days?

Donovan is quick to reply. "Everything's fine Dock Master, just kids at the helm."
"Affirmative, Captain Donovan, cancelling Red Alert." replies the Dock Master.

Cadet Camilla Rodriguez, 20 year old Latino female from Mexico, stared at her console. She didn't want to move, she couldn't move. The mishap that had triggered the station wide Red Alerts that would dog her the rest of her life, went silent, The flashing red lights were replaced by blue docking lights. For the moment, Starfleet was safe from the invasion of a scared cadet with trembling finger's.

Donovan shoots a half smile at Sunnaal as he returns his attention to the readouts of salvage and cargo they had recently recovered.

"You're not the first one to trigger a station wide Red Alert." Sunnaal says in a reassuring tone. "Come on, let's get out of here, Danear and Samuels will be waiting for us in the station." Sunnaal continues as she makes her way to the turbolift doors. Securing her console, Camilla joins Sunnaal, leaving Donovan and Tolliver alone on the bridge.

Tolliver waits until the swoosh of the turbolift doors signals both women have left the bridge. "We managed to recover two hundred tons of structural material, three phaser emitter and one Type - 6 shuttle before the Breen showed up." Tolliver says continuing where he left off.

"Percel, I know you are not fond of Cadets, but give her a chance. She'll be fine." Donovan remarks. "Have you found anything else about that unusual signal that keeps showing up?"

"Computer."
A second later, a beep confirms Tolliver's voice pattern is correct.
"Computer, display anomaly 7632."
Tolliver stands up, scans the monitor in front of him for a second, shakes his head in disappointment and then sits back down.
"It's still the same ultra violet noise pattern, Captain. UV Noise that is consistent with and old era Klingon vessel, probably cloaked, but without any reference to the noise patterns, all I can do is guess."

Donovan looks over the recent sensor readings taken from their last location. Overlay after overlay all appear to be the same pattern.

"The patterns seem consistent with for a cloaked vessel," Donovan replies while adjusting the gain of the UV noise spectrum on the display. "Saying it's Klingon without proof is not something Starfleet wants to hear at the moment. We go around saying that we found a warp signature of a cloaked Klingon vessel messing around our recovery sites, we'll have more problems than a mistakenly triggered Red Alert on our hands."

Starfleet hadn't been in contact with the Klingon Empire for nearly two hundred years. Just faint traces of uncertain data. In fact no one from the Federation had heard from the Klingons in the last two hundred years. It was as if they had dropped off the face of the Universe, which some Federation members would gladly embellish such news.

"Ain't that the truth?" Tolliver asks.

"What about the location beacon, is it still up and running?" Donovan asks already knowing the answer as the location beacon log displaying all recently launched beacons appears on the monitor to his right.

"Gone." Tolliver replies. "Most likely the Breen that jumped us."

Donovan didn't want to spend the next weeks worth of leave worrying about lost Klingons. He had shore leave to enjoy.

" I take it you won't be joining us this time either Mr. Tolliver?" Donovan asks as he walks towards the turbolift doors.

Percel had been a recluse on the last several shore leaves and some of the crew had begun to worry that he was letting his job chain him to his work station.

"Captain, I have to figure out where these cloaked patterns are coming from." he replies while reconfiguring the monitors with data readouts from sensor platforms and other ships.

"I don't wanna to be one of those names that another captain reads before heading to debriefing."

"Neither do I Percel." Donavan answered stepping into the turbolift.

The swoosh of the tubolift doors behind him relieves the chaos of the bridge from his mind, but only for a moment. "Captains Quarters." he said to the quiet. A second later a confirmation beep sounded as the turbolift started moving on its magnetic rails. It's subtle motion of movement was the only noise going through his head at the present, and that was a good thing. A week's shore leave didn't last very long. There was never much time do anything, so doing something small might make the week last longer. The turbolift slowed, stopped and then shifted sideways. Sorting through his mind he came to a time, a memory, that although big as life and not much remained, the time spent would be enough to create new and old memories to last a few more years.

Outside the half egg shaped hangar, that when finished, would be able able to house up to four a thousand meter long starships plus berthing's for the crews of each ship, large and small construction ships busied themselves with adding new sections to the hangars. Each haul of salvaged material, first taken to recycling plants in orbit around Jupiter, as well as the four major moons, Europa, Ganymede, Io and Callisto, where the salvage was broken down into atomic components. Duranium, Tritanium were the most common elements that passed through the recycling stations before being distributed to replication centers, old Sovereign class and other starships that had survived the Burn, and had been gutted of everything inside and replaced by replicators on every deck. Every once in a while an ultra rare section of neutronium was found that was quickly carted away for further analyzing.

Each hangar section would have two hangars of four ships each that would be set twenty five hundred meters, equal, from the central complex shaft. A service ring, filled with repair and maintenance equipment along with bays for repair bots, Work Bees, Sphinx, EVA hatches and resupply bays, ran through the middle of each starship hangar. Between each hangar, bots worked hundreds of thousands of meters of wiring and conduit through interior fixtures. Outside, technicians in EVA suits worked side by side with a variety of bots welding panels to the structural frames, conducting continuity tests on wires along with putting the finishing touches on each Delta Arrowhead pylon that always pointed in the direction of, out there.

Further back on the Delta, all eight of the arrowheads legs would be phased bonded to the long central shaft some ten thousand meters long, that would house the stations reactor core, communications, defense systems, medical and scientific and diplomatic facilities. Enough room to hold one hundred thousand, the core of Starfleet's rebirth. The central shaft would also house an additional ten carrier class size ships that would be the backbone of the Sol systems space defense force when completed. Rounding out the final design of Jupiter One or Delta Point as some called the station, was the interior living habitat. Transparent aluminum sections, phased bonded together, would form two shells within the legs of the pylons. Each shell would have seven sectors or layers of housing, recreation, entertainment, administration. Anything that might have been found on Earth, Andoria, Bajor, Ni'var, Bolarus IX and several other species who had made it back to Earth after the Burn, were to be put down on the streets of Delta Point. Lakes and streams and even mountain ranges were to be added. The Dome, as it was called, would rotate around the central axis to create artificial gravity as well as maintaining a 24 hour period of rotation to mimic a day on Earth. The habitat sections would eventually house more two million people from all over the Federation. Starfleet and refugees would call Delta Point their home, the station that would become the torch in the night for new pioneers, dream chasers and cadets, young and old alike, to venture from.

The shaft, broken no more.
The tip, no longer the dull blade.

drysonbennington

Coppelius, 2450

The fleet of three 3 Khitomer attack battle cruisers, 3 Temer destroyers along with 4 B'rel Bird-of-Prey escorts, lay cloaked in high orbit above the battle taking place below.

Volley after volley of Withering Radiation torpedoes race towards Coppelius from the Federation fleet of 10 Lukari Class Destroyers and 5 ghe' 'or Prey class cruisers, fifteen in all, before disappearing into Marigold shaped explosions on the planets surface below. Aboard the I.K.F. attack battle cruiser mIw'a' Colonel K'vrell watched the streaks of phaser fire pierce the night and then vanish, only to reappear seconds later. He could hear the screams of the Synths far below, caught in the surprise attack without time to respond.

There is no honor in this.

"Are we able to get a signal out to the Federation that their ships are attacking Coppelius?" K'Vrell asks moving from one side of the command deck to the other.
"No sir," the comms officer replies ",after the first broadcast that the Synths sent, all communications in, or out of the system comms were jammed."
"What is the assessment of the colonies on the surface?"
The tactical officer to the right of the command chair, scrolls through the sensor readouts on the screen in front of him. "At least four colonies are suffering severe shield damage, three have been destroyed." Gu'nul replies
"Casualties?"
"Unknown at this time, sir. If we decloak..."
K'Vrell motions towards the main screen cutting his tactical officer off. "If we decloak, we could very well give the Federation a reason to attack us, given our past with the Augments and our own failed attempts at creating our own augments. Remember, there are Klingon's serving with Starfleet now, I don't want to be in the talons of the the war bird."
Moving behind his command chair, he rests his hands on the shoulder padding and starts positioning his thoughts. Tales of Narendra III, told to him by his great great grandmother, play on the stage in his mind.

This doesn't make any sense. Why would the Federation attack Coppelius? Should I come to the aid of the Synths after their ancestors attacked a Klingon ship and killed its crew? What stakes are there for the Empire, for me, to engage the Federation fleet? Klingon's do not slaughter the weak, yet the Synths are not weak. Honor could be won by assisting the Synths, but from whom in the Federation would the honor be given by. Was this a Starfleet black operation of some sort? Would this be a final repayment for Narendra III?

K'vrell's thoughts are broken by a new alert from the tactical officer seated to the left of his chair.

"Sir! Seven of the Federation ships have broken off their attack on Coppelius and are heading directly for us."

"Range?" K'vrell inquires moving to his own command chair. The small points of white forming the shapes of warp nacelles and saucer sections that closer they move towards his own fleet. while moving to his command chair while watching the fleet moving towards his own
"10,000 kellicams!" V'nul replies with the taste of battle in his mouth.
"qabraj! not jachtaHvIS jach 'arqon ghot law', Hoch ja'chuqghach je, yabwIj. ( Fleet, combat alert! Oh Dagger of Honor, find the heart of thy enemy and end their suffering!) K'Vvrell bellows from his Klingon lungs. A second later the tactical officers of of Klingon fleet report in, confirming Combat Alert and that each ship was moving into Crushing Hammer formation.
The glory of battle boiled in the veins of the Klingons aboard their ships. That moment, that moment when their general would give the order to de-cloak, ran red through their hearts like the blood red light of the klaxon playing across each Klingon deck, the fury of blood red glory washing across their faces, their stage upon which they would find glory.
"Ku'lor."
"ghertlhuD?"(Yes, General?") came the reply from the captain of the Temer class destroyer, ru'Ha'wI' (Lightning Wind) over the speakers of the mIw'a'.
"veng wanI'vaM'e' Danobbogh HoSghajwI' je, qaStaHvIS poH nIvqu' mInDu'Daj."(When the order is given to decloak, you will make five deep scans of the planet and then warp to the nearest Federation outpost. The Federation needs to know what happened this day.)
"ghertlhuD" Ku'lor acknowledges.
"5,000 kellicams, nIvuvqu' 'ej law', Hoch joHjaj!" (5,000 kellicams,They are moving to match us General!)
"loS." (wait) K'Vrell commands as the fleet of white ships on the main view screen move into close disruptor range.
How can they possibly know our formation? Advanced sensors? A saboteur loyal to the Federation? K'vrell says as he thinks to himself, the mass of ships, blood already covering their hulls, continues to advance towards his cloaked fleet, like a wall of inferno death, teeth in a maw. Snarling, waiting to sink their dreaded blood soaked fangs into his ships, demon beasts from Gre'thor.
"raH?" asks a junior tactical officer seated in front of Gu'nul.
"3,000 kellicams ,qaH (sir)" replies the senior gunner. "mIw raH, qaH". "Firing range, sir"
"loS."(wait)
"2,500 kellicams, qah"
"los."
The adrenaline rushes through K'Vrell's body. The blood courses through both Klingon hearts feeding the tightened muscles ready to strike.
"Da'ang'a'? Hamlet, quvna' QupwI'pu'?!" (Can you not hear it? The beating drums of battle in your hearts!)
"los." Commands K'Vrell. The the
"puqloDpu' maHvaD WanI'mey, 'ach SIbI' je, poSvetlh Hoch ngemHom vIghajbej. maj, ja'chuqmeH maH!" (Today, we return to the Federation that which was given without question and to the Romulans, the tip of the blade into the cowards chest! Today, we find glory!) K'Vrell yells loudly enough for the entire galaxy to hear him.
"2,000 kellicams,qah."
"wejpuH!" ( Full impulse power!) K'Vrell says as he burns with the fire of battle flowing through him
"1,000 kellicams!"
Standing up, like a great general marching his army to battle to the sound of Klingon battle horns, the whites of the eyes of the enemy before him, K'vrell raises his arms to his front.
"bIjatlh 'e' yIHar!" (Decloak!)

The offering of death's fire erupts from torpedo launchers, disruptor fire lashes out in the darkness at the incoming starships. Seconds later, torpedo's and phaser fire from the squadron of Federation starships rains its own destruction towards the Klingon fleet. The Battle of Coppelius had begun.

drysonbennington

Somewhere in Romulan Territory, at an undisclosed, classified location.

The sunlight rushing through the windows of the station sets a subtle warmth on the middle aged man's face looking out into the darkness of space at the stars.

"The front is going as expected I take it?" Praetor Damar Temer asks eyeing the cloaked war bird passing by on its scheduled patrol of the station. The warmth of the sun settles into his mind at the future that was unfolding before him. The future of a new Romulan Empire, born from the ashes of chaos and despair.

"Operation Reunification couldn't be going any better than planned Praetor." Senator Dela Tulan, a female Senator from Virinat replies. Looking around to each of the male Senators faces, Loxal Praehept from Xanitla, La'tan Axala from Levaeri V and Vicel Anhand from Celles II, Dela continues with the last Romulan's nod of his head.

"Dilithium mining efforts on Celles II are at normal operating levels. Senator Praehept assures me that crops will grow more abundant this year when the fields are tilled and seeded by the thousands of Romulan agriculturists who are ready to work long hours for the glory of Reunification. The processing plants and scaffolds are ready and lay stationed in secret facilities known only to Senator Axala..."

The Praetor turns a Raptor's Eye on the four Senators before returning to his thoughts to space. "And what is your position, Senator Tulan?"
Feeling the apprehension in the Praetor's sudden flight, Romulan security officers emerge from their ire lofts, ready to strike. The Senators, each in turn, bow their heads towards Praetor Temer , confirming their allegiance to the Praetor, the embodiment of the Romulan Empire.
Taking a subdued position, Dela continues with her head bowed. "Praetor, I can assure you that there is no intent other than Reunification. Virinat has 150 Chak D'Deridex class Warbirds at different locations around the empire, waiting for your word to emerge and reunify the Empire under your name. "

Turning to face the bowed head of the Senators, the Praetor motions his hand that sends the security officers back into the shadows before speaking. "Senators, rise. I am certain that you are aware of the utmost secrecy involved with Reunification." Praetor Temer says into each of the faces of the Senators standing before him. "There cannot be any doubt or dissention this close to Reunification. Otherwise all of it this, will be for nothing."

"Hail Praetor Temer, leader of the Romulan Empire." the four Senators say in unison before exiting the room.

Walking around the room, hands folded behind his back, the sun casting long shadows where the Senators had been seated, Praetor Temer reminds himself that Reunification will be the most glory that the Romulan Empire had seen in years. With the Remans being held back with interior conflict, well planted by Tal-Shiar agents that he had total control over, the Federation still reeling from it's losses to the Borg invasion, the egg in the Raptor's nest, that only a handful of the most elite Romulans knew about, would crack open. The birth of the new Romulan Empire would take flight on outspread wings and sharpened talons. A glory that must be protected at all costs.