Fic - "Going Forward" - BSG/STNG AU - Part 20
Oh look! Part 20 of the Going Forward! In you didnt know, its the sequel to Going Native, tagged trekfic, and is tagged as goingforwardfic here. Its a BSG/STNG crossover that is now delving into the Dominion War.
Gaeta looked at the readings and hoped that for once, he’d gotten lucky. “Do you have the ship identified, Mr. Mackenzie?”
“Yes sir, “ Mackenzie said. “It’s the USS Valiant. At last communication, it was assigned to Captain Ramirez and was tasked with circumnavigating the Federation… A training cruise, most of the crew roles were filled by cadets.”
Kara rolled her eyes from her position at the tactical conn. “A cadet cruise?”
Gaeta eyed her. “The Federation did not anticipate the war.” Because they had their heads up their asses, and the Valiant’s assignment was a direct sign. Ramirez was a good officer and the Valiant was another Defiant class warship, part of the initial production run of ships that were to serve as prototypes for the new class like Surprise. What better use for a light patrol warship than to have it seconded off to the Academy and uses as a training vessel. It made him sick, that was the truth. The only savings grace to the whole mess was that he knew Ramirez to be an excellent officer. Which of course explained why the man was exiled to an experimental ship with a bunch of cadets for crew. It was in many ways enraging. Kara wasn’t helping the mood by harping yet again on the bad decisions that had been made. “Hail them.”
Ramirez would get along with Admiral Adama. The Admiral might find himself chafing more since Ramirez wasn’t going to assume much about his skill until he’d seen the ship in battle, but the older Starfleet officer was fair and an out of the box thinker. They were going to run across Starfleet officers that outranked him eventually and Ramirez was an almost optimal pick. It was a relief.
Until the Valiant responded to the hail. “This is acting Captain Tim Watters of the U.S.S Valiant. Are you the Defiant?” The view screen showed a very young looking human man.
Gaeta glanced over to Mackenzie. The officer gestured to his padd. “Watters is a senior cadet, in Red Squad.”
A bad sign. Every officer had to be dead or incapacitated for that to happen. He hadn’t been overly fond of the idea of Red Squad, it just seemed like another way to make cadets compete for rank, but since being in Red Squad meant a cadet was fast tracked, at least they were finding good cadets. “I’m Commander Gaeta, captain of the Surprise. It looks like your cadet cruise was eventful. We noticed your ship seems to damaged.” The Valiant’s warp drive was throwing off some unusual readings, and there was signs of scoring from weapons fire.
“We were attacked by a Cardassian ship,” Watters said. Felix blinked but didn’t express his surprise. It wasn’t unexpected, the Cardassians making a move against the Federation, but it was disheartening just the same. “My engineering staff is working on it…. The officers assigned to act as our assessors were killed in the initial attack. Captain Ramirez gave me a battlefield commission before his death and command of the Valiant.” Watters said it nonchalantly but his chest swelling with pride was obvious on the view screen. “Frankly, sir, I’d appreciate it if you could spare someone to come over and have a look at it. We don‘t have the industrial replicators we need to generate the parts we need to fix things but I want to make sure the crew is safe, at least.”
“Of course.” Gaeta gave a nod to Barclay who quickly moved. “I’ll have my chief engineer beam over and assess the damage.” The next part was more difficult, but it had to be said. “You’ve done a commendable job, Cadet Watters. You’re also very lucky. If the damage is that severe, we have access to some repair facilities. You’re relieved, Mr. Watters.” Gaeta turned to Mackenzie. “Signal the Galactica. We’ll probably need to access their facilities in order to affect repairs.” The Valiant was too large to fit in the landing bay, but it could safely dock on the Galactica. The sensor readings indicated the warp drive would need extensive repairs. The admiral wasn’t going to like having the Galactica used as a repair platform, but if Valiant’s warp drive was repairable, that put another fighting ship into action.
“But… “ Watters looked stricken for a moment and then covered it. “With respect, sir, I am following the orders Starfleet sent Capt. Ramirez.”
“Capt. Ramirez is dead,” Felix said gently. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Mr. Watters, but those orders from Starfleet were meant for Captain Ramirez, not a training ship full of cadets.” It occurred to him that if Valiant was in better shape, the angry looking cadet just might do something he’d regret later. He could see it in the young man’s eyes, the look of someone overwhelmed by responsibility, but unwilling to let the load on his shoulders go. For an instant, Tim Watters in his Starfleet cadet uniform and captain’s rank looked like a colonial, with his tired eyes and worn, hungry appearance. “You’ve done well, Watters. You’ve saved a ship of the fleet. Capt. Ramirez was wise to put his faith in you. I’m sending over my chief engineer to assist you.”
And possibly a few others, just to make sure that cadet excitement didn’t override good sense.
~*~
“It needs to be taken offline,” Barclay said after just a moment of looking. He gestured to the three cadets that had assumed the engineering duties. “You did the right thing by restricting the ship from warp.” He started to describe exactly what was wrong, and Kara began to tune it out. She understood the basics of warp theory, that had been one of the first courses that New Atlanteans were offered. She was more interested in the overall ship. Valiant was a Defiant class like Surprise but it lacked the modifications for FTL travel. She was old school from a technological standpoint, she preferred FTL. The colonies had used it for hundreds of years. It was sturdy. It had limitations. A jump was instant, but distance was still an issue. And warp could go faster. Over short distances and known space, FTL drives were, at least until the war began, beginning to catch on in a number of systems as reliable transport that didn’t need to be constantly fussed over. Warp drive engines were much more delicate, but she could see where they were better for longer range trips. There was no such thing as a blind jump with warp transit. It was a safer way to travel if you were exploring.
The important thing was that it was faster. She let her hand rest on the computer. She didn’t have Gaeta’s gift, at least not in the controllable way that he had, but since the jump with the Galactica, she had noticed that what she had more… intuitive feelings about ships. Galactica was the old man’s, it accepted her and she suspected that when Bill Adama officially handed over the reins, its affection would transfer to her. Surprise in contrast seemed to merely tolerate her. It was Gaeta’s ship, it had a master and just didn’t want her. Valiant, in contrast, felt like a trembling racehorse that desperately wanted to run and had no idea why it couldn’t. We’ll get you fixed, she thought at it, and she could feel a sort of frission of electricity as though the ship suddenly relaxed, like it knew it was finally in good hands.
Idiot cadets, she thought again. Oh she understood it, she understood it all too well. Red Squad was apparently some sort of elite cadet formation. She’d never qualified for any such group when she had been at the Caprican Military Academy. The elite groupings had been for the rich sons and daughters of the high society sorts that demanded their children have status due to their family connections. She knew Starfleet Academy was different, that the different cadet specialty groupings were more merit based and that Red Squad was touted as some sort of “best of the best” honor. She didn’t care. It was good, lucky for all concerned, that they weren’t the dregs of the school, but she firmly believed something one of her flight instructors had told her after she was passed over for a spot on the Caprican Academy Acrobatic Flyers. No one, the veteran of the Cylon war had told her, gave a frak in the fleet about what stupid cadet honors anyone earned. She had assumed the older man was patronizing her until her first assignment, where the pampered star cadet of the famous Caprican family bounced a landing so hard, he broke his legs and the deck and the commander of the Tiburion had personally walked down to the deck to let the idiot know that his last name wasn’t an excuse for failure. Starfleet wasn’t *that* different. Once cadets moved from school to the real world, the cadet ranking mattered a lot less.
She turned to Reg. “I can see you have the problem handled, Maddog. The Galactica has the replicators available to make the parts we’ll need.” The cadets looked at her quizzically.
Reg smiled at the nickname and thought about it for just a moment and then sighed. “It’s too bad this ship won’t fit in the landing bays. We’ll have to suit up for some of it.”
“At least we can use the Galactica as a repair platform,” she said easily as she made her way to the lift. She was just glad for a change that she wasn’t on the Galactica. The Admiral was not going to like the plan to land the Valiant on the Galactica’s stern and secure it for repairs, and she was certain he wasn’t going to like a passel of pampered arrogant cadets being dumped into his crew quarters. She was just glad that Gaeta had taken that task.
Besides, she thought as the lift took her up to the command deck, it wouldn’t be that many cadets at all. The Valiant could be repaired. That meant another shifting of personnel. Some of the cadets would need to go to the Surprise to replace the officers that Gaeta would have to shift over to the Valiant. They had the remnants of the Jedikiah’s crew, that would help since it had been mostly engineering people that had survived but there would need to be reassignments.
I want this ship, she thought suddenly. She could almost feel the ship respond, putting more spring into her step as she walked onto the Valiant’s bridge. “Hail Surprise,” she said to the cadet sitting at the comm station. Gaeta’s face popped onto the view screen. He looked like he had been dealing with the Admiral, his expression was tight. “Sir, the Valiant will need to have the warp engine shut down for repair. Do we have permission to dock with Galactica?”
Gaeta nodded. “The Admiral has agreed to the temporary measure. He stressed to me very clearly how temporary of a measure he wants this to be… What did Barclay say about that?”
He was more worried than he wanted the crew to know. Worried that the Valiant couldn’t be secured to the Galactica, that was her sense. The Admiral wasn’t happy about it, there were a lot of practical reasons why latching something as big as the Valiant onto the stern was a potentially bad idea, but he hadn’t said no. And Gaeta knew Adama wouldn’t say no, at least until it was certain Valiant couldn’t be repaired. Gaeta was worried that they would have to abandon the ship. She was glad to have good news. “It’s lucky the Admiral is going to let us hitch a ride, but it’s fixable as long as the replicators can handle the parts we need. It might take a day or two at most, and most of that will be with the warp core cold so if the Galactica needs to jump, we can hop a ride.” She was less certain about whether a running warp drive would interfere with a jump but if they were lucky it wouldn’t need to be tested.
Gaeta visibly relaxed. The cadets on deck noticed it as well. You need to be more careful, Kara thought, although she knew he couldn’t hear her. Cadets, especially snobby elite cadets, needed more bucking up, and the senior officer in charge revealing his worry, real as it was, just made them more nervous. “I have go ahead from the Admiral then?”
“Yes.” Gaeta smiled. “He also said to remember that the Galactica just went through an extensive refit and if you so much as scratch the new paint, he’ll have your ass in the brig.”
She saw the humor. “That’s very easy for him to say considering I’ve been seconded to Starfleet for the duration. Has my favorite cell been reserved?”
Gaeta shrugged. “I had to make concessions in order to get permission to use the Galactica as ‘Starfleet’s floating chop shop’, as the Admiral put it. So yes, he can now put you on report. So don’t bounce the landing.”
“I *never* bounce landings… sir.” It was teasing, but not the sort she’d take from one Felix Gaeta.
“Good. When you’re done, get the crew off loaded to the Galactica and join the Admiral and I in the Galactica conference room.” He leaned back in his chair. “With an extra ship and so many cadets, I’ll need to reassign some people.” He smiled again. “This won’t take you long, I trust?”
She bit her tongue. Odds were that she would getting the command of Valiant, there just weren’t enough ranking officers, and Gaeta was needling her to test her temper. Or he was just being an ass. “The more we talk, the less gets done, sir. I’ll have it on deck in five minutes. Securing it should take ten more minutes, and the lifts here are a little slow so I’ll be seeing you in twenty, sir.”
She cut off the transmission before he could react and jumped out of the command chair. “Out of that seat,” she barked at the cadet. “I’m flying this.” She put her hands on the console and smiled wickedly. You’re just like a viper, she thought as the ship began to move under her direction, only you’re bigger, faster and have better guns. We’re going to be good friends. She pointed to the displaced cadet. “Get up in that chair, “she pointed to the command seat, “and relay my instructions, is that understood?“ The cadet nodded and took position. Kara flicked on the loudspeaker. “Valiant crew, listen up. This is Cmdr Thrace and we are about to hard dock with Galactica. Sit down, keep alert, and enjoy the ride.”
Gaeta looked at the readings and hoped that for once, he’d gotten lucky. “Do you have the ship identified, Mr. Mackenzie?”
“Yes sir, “ Mackenzie said. “It’s the USS Valiant. At last communication, it was assigned to Captain Ramirez and was tasked with circumnavigating the Federation… A training cruise, most of the crew roles were filled by cadets.”
Kara rolled her eyes from her position at the tactical conn. “A cadet cruise?”
Gaeta eyed her. “The Federation did not anticipate the war.” Because they had their heads up their asses, and the Valiant’s assignment was a direct sign. Ramirez was a good officer and the Valiant was another Defiant class warship, part of the initial production run of ships that were to serve as prototypes for the new class like Surprise. What better use for a light patrol warship than to have it seconded off to the Academy and uses as a training vessel. It made him sick, that was the truth. The only savings grace to the whole mess was that he knew Ramirez to be an excellent officer. Which of course explained why the man was exiled to an experimental ship with a bunch of cadets for crew. It was in many ways enraging. Kara wasn’t helping the mood by harping yet again on the bad decisions that had been made. “Hail them.”
Ramirez would get along with Admiral Adama. The Admiral might find himself chafing more since Ramirez wasn’t going to assume much about his skill until he’d seen the ship in battle, but the older Starfleet officer was fair and an out of the box thinker. They were going to run across Starfleet officers that outranked him eventually and Ramirez was an almost optimal pick. It was a relief.
Until the Valiant responded to the hail. “This is acting Captain Tim Watters of the U.S.S Valiant. Are you the Defiant?” The view screen showed a very young looking human man.
Gaeta glanced over to Mackenzie. The officer gestured to his padd. “Watters is a senior cadet, in Red Squad.”
A bad sign. Every officer had to be dead or incapacitated for that to happen. He hadn’t been overly fond of the idea of Red Squad, it just seemed like another way to make cadets compete for rank, but since being in Red Squad meant a cadet was fast tracked, at least they were finding good cadets. “I’m Commander Gaeta, captain of the Surprise. It looks like your cadet cruise was eventful. We noticed your ship seems to damaged.” The Valiant’s warp drive was throwing off some unusual readings, and there was signs of scoring from weapons fire.
“We were attacked by a Cardassian ship,” Watters said. Felix blinked but didn’t express his surprise. It wasn’t unexpected, the Cardassians making a move against the Federation, but it was disheartening just the same. “My engineering staff is working on it…. The officers assigned to act as our assessors were killed in the initial attack. Captain Ramirez gave me a battlefield commission before his death and command of the Valiant.” Watters said it nonchalantly but his chest swelling with pride was obvious on the view screen. “Frankly, sir, I’d appreciate it if you could spare someone to come over and have a look at it. We don‘t have the industrial replicators we need to generate the parts we need to fix things but I want to make sure the crew is safe, at least.”
“Of course.” Gaeta gave a nod to Barclay who quickly moved. “I’ll have my chief engineer beam over and assess the damage.” The next part was more difficult, but it had to be said. “You’ve done a commendable job, Cadet Watters. You’re also very lucky. If the damage is that severe, we have access to some repair facilities. You’re relieved, Mr. Watters.” Gaeta turned to Mackenzie. “Signal the Galactica. We’ll probably need to access their facilities in order to affect repairs.” The Valiant was too large to fit in the landing bay, but it could safely dock on the Galactica. The sensor readings indicated the warp drive would need extensive repairs. The admiral wasn’t going to like having the Galactica used as a repair platform, but if Valiant’s warp drive was repairable, that put another fighting ship into action.
“But… “ Watters looked stricken for a moment and then covered it. “With respect, sir, I am following the orders Starfleet sent Capt. Ramirez.”
“Capt. Ramirez is dead,” Felix said gently. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Mr. Watters, but those orders from Starfleet were meant for Captain Ramirez, not a training ship full of cadets.” It occurred to him that if Valiant was in better shape, the angry looking cadet just might do something he’d regret later. He could see it in the young man’s eyes, the look of someone overwhelmed by responsibility, but unwilling to let the load on his shoulders go. For an instant, Tim Watters in his Starfleet cadet uniform and captain’s rank looked like a colonial, with his tired eyes and worn, hungry appearance. “You’ve done well, Watters. You’ve saved a ship of the fleet. Capt. Ramirez was wise to put his faith in you. I’m sending over my chief engineer to assist you.”
And possibly a few others, just to make sure that cadet excitement didn’t override good sense.
~*~
“It needs to be taken offline,” Barclay said after just a moment of looking. He gestured to the three cadets that had assumed the engineering duties. “You did the right thing by restricting the ship from warp.” He started to describe exactly what was wrong, and Kara began to tune it out. She understood the basics of warp theory, that had been one of the first courses that New Atlanteans were offered. She was more interested in the overall ship. Valiant was a Defiant class like Surprise but it lacked the modifications for FTL travel. She was old school from a technological standpoint, she preferred FTL. The colonies had used it for hundreds of years. It was sturdy. It had limitations. A jump was instant, but distance was still an issue. And warp could go faster. Over short distances and known space, FTL drives were, at least until the war began, beginning to catch on in a number of systems as reliable transport that didn’t need to be constantly fussed over. Warp drive engines were much more delicate, but she could see where they were better for longer range trips. There was no such thing as a blind jump with warp transit. It was a safer way to travel if you were exploring.
The important thing was that it was faster. She let her hand rest on the computer. She didn’t have Gaeta’s gift, at least not in the controllable way that he had, but since the jump with the Galactica, she had noticed that what she had more… intuitive feelings about ships. Galactica was the old man’s, it accepted her and she suspected that when Bill Adama officially handed over the reins, its affection would transfer to her. Surprise in contrast seemed to merely tolerate her. It was Gaeta’s ship, it had a master and just didn’t want her. Valiant, in contrast, felt like a trembling racehorse that desperately wanted to run and had no idea why it couldn’t. We’ll get you fixed, she thought at it, and she could feel a sort of frission of electricity as though the ship suddenly relaxed, like it knew it was finally in good hands.
Idiot cadets, she thought again. Oh she understood it, she understood it all too well. Red Squad was apparently some sort of elite cadet formation. She’d never qualified for any such group when she had been at the Caprican Military Academy. The elite groupings had been for the rich sons and daughters of the high society sorts that demanded their children have status due to their family connections. She knew Starfleet Academy was different, that the different cadet specialty groupings were more merit based and that Red Squad was touted as some sort of “best of the best” honor. She didn’t care. It was good, lucky for all concerned, that they weren’t the dregs of the school, but she firmly believed something one of her flight instructors had told her after she was passed over for a spot on the Caprican Academy Acrobatic Flyers. No one, the veteran of the Cylon war had told her, gave a frak in the fleet about what stupid cadet honors anyone earned. She had assumed the older man was patronizing her until her first assignment, where the pampered star cadet of the famous Caprican family bounced a landing so hard, he broke his legs and the deck and the commander of the Tiburion had personally walked down to the deck to let the idiot know that his last name wasn’t an excuse for failure. Starfleet wasn’t *that* different. Once cadets moved from school to the real world, the cadet ranking mattered a lot less.
She turned to Reg. “I can see you have the problem handled, Maddog. The Galactica has the replicators available to make the parts we’ll need.” The cadets looked at her quizzically.
Reg smiled at the nickname and thought about it for just a moment and then sighed. “It’s too bad this ship won’t fit in the landing bays. We’ll have to suit up for some of it.”
“At least we can use the Galactica as a repair platform,” she said easily as she made her way to the lift. She was just glad for a change that she wasn’t on the Galactica. The Admiral was not going to like the plan to land the Valiant on the Galactica’s stern and secure it for repairs, and she was certain he wasn’t going to like a passel of pampered arrogant cadets being dumped into his crew quarters. She was just glad that Gaeta had taken that task.
Besides, she thought as the lift took her up to the command deck, it wouldn’t be that many cadets at all. The Valiant could be repaired. That meant another shifting of personnel. Some of the cadets would need to go to the Surprise to replace the officers that Gaeta would have to shift over to the Valiant. They had the remnants of the Jedikiah’s crew, that would help since it had been mostly engineering people that had survived but there would need to be reassignments.
I want this ship, she thought suddenly. She could almost feel the ship respond, putting more spring into her step as she walked onto the Valiant’s bridge. “Hail Surprise,” she said to the cadet sitting at the comm station. Gaeta’s face popped onto the view screen. He looked like he had been dealing with the Admiral, his expression was tight. “Sir, the Valiant will need to have the warp engine shut down for repair. Do we have permission to dock with Galactica?”
Gaeta nodded. “The Admiral has agreed to the temporary measure. He stressed to me very clearly how temporary of a measure he wants this to be… What did Barclay say about that?”
He was more worried than he wanted the crew to know. Worried that the Valiant couldn’t be secured to the Galactica, that was her sense. The Admiral wasn’t happy about it, there were a lot of practical reasons why latching something as big as the Valiant onto the stern was a potentially bad idea, but he hadn’t said no. And Gaeta knew Adama wouldn’t say no, at least until it was certain Valiant couldn’t be repaired. Gaeta was worried that they would have to abandon the ship. She was glad to have good news. “It’s lucky the Admiral is going to let us hitch a ride, but it’s fixable as long as the replicators can handle the parts we need. It might take a day or two at most, and most of that will be with the warp core cold so if the Galactica needs to jump, we can hop a ride.” She was less certain about whether a running warp drive would interfere with a jump but if they were lucky it wouldn’t need to be tested.
Gaeta visibly relaxed. The cadets on deck noticed it as well. You need to be more careful, Kara thought, although she knew he couldn’t hear her. Cadets, especially snobby elite cadets, needed more bucking up, and the senior officer in charge revealing his worry, real as it was, just made them more nervous. “I have go ahead from the Admiral then?”
“Yes.” Gaeta smiled. “He also said to remember that the Galactica just went through an extensive refit and if you so much as scratch the new paint, he’ll have your ass in the brig.”
She saw the humor. “That’s very easy for him to say considering I’ve been seconded to Starfleet for the duration. Has my favorite cell been reserved?”
Gaeta shrugged. “I had to make concessions in order to get permission to use the Galactica as ‘Starfleet’s floating chop shop’, as the Admiral put it. So yes, he can now put you on report. So don’t bounce the landing.”
“I *never* bounce landings… sir.” It was teasing, but not the sort she’d take from one Felix Gaeta.
“Good. When you’re done, get the crew off loaded to the Galactica and join the Admiral and I in the Galactica conference room.” He leaned back in his chair. “With an extra ship and so many cadets, I’ll need to reassign some people.” He smiled again. “This won’t take you long, I trust?”
She bit her tongue. Odds were that she would getting the command of Valiant, there just weren’t enough ranking officers, and Gaeta was needling her to test her temper. Or he was just being an ass. “The more we talk, the less gets done, sir. I’ll have it on deck in five minutes. Securing it should take ten more minutes, and the lifts here are a little slow so I’ll be seeing you in twenty, sir.”
She cut off the transmission before he could react and jumped out of the command chair. “Out of that seat,” she barked at the cadet. “I’m flying this.” She put her hands on the console and smiled wickedly. You’re just like a viper, she thought as the ship began to move under her direction, only you’re bigger, faster and have better guns. We’re going to be good friends. She pointed to the displaced cadet. “Get up in that chair, “she pointed to the command seat, “and relay my instructions, is that understood?“ The cadet nodded and took position. Kara flicked on the loudspeaker. “Valiant crew, listen up. This is Cmdr Thrace and we are about to hard dock with Galactica. Sit down, keep alert, and enjoy the ride.”