The Four...

[knightgrace]

Four ships, from four different vectors came in from the darkness, into a far orbit around a K type star...their impulse drives slowing them down, thought by some to be a radical speed. They came to relative rest, slightly under one light-hour from each hour, to be exact, almost real-time, at their subspace radio's warp factor fifteen communication speed. This meeting up, was done every six months for communication security purposes. It involved, sometimes the use of a warp factor three Tritium class Shuttlecraft, but not this time. This was different using standard twenty foot shuttlepods. Part of the reason for the meet ups was personal exchanges. Each shuttlepod made several trips. Enough trips that the shuttlepod pilot had to be changed out - twice. At random shuttlepod transports, the Captain's made their way to the ship where the Captain's meeting et el, was to occur. This took several hours to complete. Previously the Captain's arrived on a prime number of the run. This time it was an even numbered run. Specifically the tenth.
Each of these rather gigantic ships was as large as the Federation Starfleet could make them. The problem was that no recycling of warp plasma was possible, but on the other hand, it was a pure reaction 1:1 matter/antimatter reaction. But a weak one because of containment forcefield technology limitations. The problem was that to achieve the required power levels forcefield technology was integral to the reactors at the far end of the warp nacelles. But the problem with a pure reaction was that it took the radiation tolerance limit above safe levels of exposure to radiation. Hence the were placed at the far end of the nacelles. Meaning that the reason products had to be steered to the fore end of the nacelles to begin their work each nacelle had two matter/antimatter reactors, to reduce the overall power requirements to a given reactor. Also in the reactors were the impulse power units. Inside each ship, was a fully Transtator based computer system, with a full number of Transtator memory units. Each memory unit was a single Transtator, and in some corner of the Earth were increasingly referred to as memory tapes.

 

[knightgrace]

Three shuttlepods converged on the fourth ship, as they approached two shuttlepods departed from the fourth ship, each was fully crew, with seven persons, and fully provisioned for a long mission. Meaning that the personnel onboard were crowded out, or very close to this state.
The first out was checking out a possible archeological mystery, the second was doing a follow up on the possible detection of a biological event. It would be several hours before the first shuttlepod arrived at its destination coordinates. For the other two days..
The point being that a shuttlepod sensor capability was better than a probes.
Meanwhile the Captains and their staffs, were sitting down, having coffee, beginning to address the latest problems.
The biggest one was the warp factor fifteen subspace communication speed, and the limited range there of, to about fifty-seven light-years. Just to transmit to tis distance took fifty-seven megawatts of times 225 times this to transmit into subspace. This meant that they could only transmit, once a day. For about five minutes, on multiple channels. They rarely went beyond two.
The Captain of the third ship was telling about what happened to his parents when they both got promoted to the rank of 'Captain', and assigned to two different Palomar class advanced Research ships, equipped with second generation warp drives, meaning that warp factor three, with their main warp nacelles was about the best that they could do. And thanks to the old Edison class Research ships, and their refinement of the understanding of the warp drive, they could spend a great deal of time traveling at eighty-one c, sometimes 243c, for warp factor three power, but this wasn't always possible which is the far more modern Research ships were excessively built, totalling one hundred such examples.
But, his were assigned to travel in essence in opposite directions, so that they never were very close...
People actually groaned with that one.

 

[knightgrace]

At a distance away from the four, was the minor headache between the eyes, was quickly becoming an absolute migraine in nature.
For the equivalent to five hundred years of their ability to warp fly. There was only one small problem...
They believed that they were the inherenters of the local space time structure. Which somehow incorporated the entire universe...

In other words, the same old story.

In this case, as far as the Federation, was concerned, they could keep to their volume.

Unfortunately these guys due to some similarities to the Middle Kingdom, had little in the way of humor.

THEY, were the Supreme ones, and one must be properly humble before them. Unfortunately, because of their technological stagnation the hadn't progressed beyond Advanced Second Generation Warp Drive. Yes, they had subspace radio, but no one was their equal. And while the Federation Starfleet, was apparently humble, something was odd about it based upon the limited data transmitted to the central authorities.
You see, the problem was, that, those serving on their frontier, always came into conflict with the Home. What this meant was that the Frontier Fleet, was always short of expericed high ranking Officers due to the fact that for some none understood reason they kept committing treason, and so, unfortunately, died.

From the Federation's perspective, and die to General Order Number One, communication was extremely difficult. Mann class ships being the greatest in numbers and the fastest at this time, were a whole generation ahead of what Starfleet crews called 'pussycats' - a sarcastic commentary on them. Even though they didn't resemble cats at all.
To put this another way, their problem was that they were so sure of themselves that they, for the most part could not understand that Federation was playing 'nice' with them.
If a Mann, was brought to battle with one of them, then GN1, was in effect, meaning that they were expected to fight to a draw. At, best.

A few Mann's had been lost, in this way.

 

[knightgrace]

But these four weren't the problem...
Subspace radio is fast, at warp factor fifteen, but far from instantaneous. At this distance from the opposition home world, and their predilection to find and destroy Subspace Relay Beacons, meant that more usual than in other volumes, Beacons would drop out...permanently. meaning that work arounds had to be made use of. So that messages farther than about fifty-seven light-years, often had to go around the breakages. Meaning that a fifth Mann class, which had been out on mission for nearly five years, had been found to be out of place, this put her commanding Commodore, in a foul mood, only to find out through a back channel (civilian rely) that the Relay. Beacons, hadn't relayed for obvious reasons. They weren't there any more.
The missing Mann class was at the opposition home world, as embassy. She had been granted passthrough status, and passport status. But when he saw whom was assigned as Ambassador, and his staff, the Vulcan started actually swearing.
He knew this particular Ambassador.
Boy did he know him.
He started preparing letters of condolence for the ship and crew.
The Ambassador, however was fine, he always was - that was the problem. His wheeling and dealing was unethical to say the least. Somebody always ended up dead, on the Federation side. In at least one case a whole colony.
Commodores it was said commanded Star Bases, the Fleet Admiral commanded several fleets. His job was to watch from a distance, and instruct, the Admirals under his command in how to move their Fleets.
He ordered his reserve Fleet, running logistics into the area. Fast.
Meanwhile, onboard the Mann in question, a very unhappy Lieutenant was taking command of what for him, was an extreme nightmare. He had been promoted from Chief Engineer to First Officer, after said First Officer had been murdered, down on the surface of that home world. The because of onboard political gamesmanship, the Andorian Captain, had been forced into committing dishonorable suicide. Not Andorian honorable suicide, but dishonorable suicide...at best.
That wasn't the problem.
A Klingon Fleet was coming in hot, being chased by someone too far out of the Mann's sensor range. The only reason they knew anything at all was occasionally a disruptor beam would flash through where there were. Briefly illuminating the ship or planetary surface. Too far away to do any damage, but close enough to tell the Starfleet ship that the Klingons were not having a good day. Klingon disruptors had an effective range that outreached Federation Starfleet Laser cannon, but not by much. What balanced things to the Federation Starfleet side was that the Primary Forcefield, was far better than the Klingon Primary Forcefield.
The Federation Starfleet's lasers consisted of triple barrel weapons. Small, medium, and large. The large had a maximum effectiveness of fifty thousand kilometers against screened targets, the medium an effective range against screened targets of thirty thousand kilometers, and the small of ten thousand kilometers. Each was capable of levels one to five impact/burn, with strange things happening at level five. The problem wasn't understood. Definition - legal/science term, wasn't up to snuf, though it had been better than fifty years of use.
Keeping in mind that the Federation Council restricted the normal use to small setting one. So no good data, was available.
But the secondary problem on the Fifth Mann, was diplomatic. Since this problem first came to light a day ago, a ranking Admiral had decided to bring in his personal shuttlepod, well the closest equivalent was the Royal Family.
He had known the truth about the Federation, not all of it, but enough to know...
The new Captain was very anoid. He was in full dress uniform that only had his Lieutenant's rank on it. Until confirmation.
The Admiral, a junior one at that, was politely trying to get the new Captain to move his new command to safety. For two reasons, the first being Capitol city politics and the second being the Klingons and whomever...
The new Captain kept telling him that the danger was minimal. It would take the Federation ship better than sixty- seven minutes to get up to warp engage velocity.
At a distance distance of three minutes out, he gave the order. 3.4 minutes later they were at warp engagement. They looked at him totally flabbergasted. One point eight minutes later and they were at warp factor one. Sixty-five point three seconds later they were at warp factor 4.5...

 

[knightgrace]

The opposition Admiral was totally out of sorts, and not in a good way...
The new Federation Starfleet Captain, we tried telling you that you couldn't handle it out here, because you weren't keeping up, with the times.
The Opposition Admiral looked at him.
We have an order - called General Order Number One...
I have heard about it.
The problem is none of you have paid attention to it.
Basically it means that we aren't out here to play at being God.
Or, if you like, interfering Inlaws. We aren't here to baby sit you. We have enough problems of our own.
The King to be, got it first.
For five hundred of your years, which is roughly also about five hundred of our years, you have been stagnant. For no reason. Your survival was at stake, to say nothing of your culture.
The Federation after he closed his eyes in thought and pain isn't about conquest, it's about knowledge and exploration, and defense doesn't come close to what we are about. It is simply a necessity to make sure about things.
We are about individual freedom, not, as some say, anarchy.
What's the difference?
In anarchy, there is absolutely no law. So anything goes...
And in Freedom, one's rights end, when you harm, another. Some groups have said over the centuries that everyone must be protected from any kind of harm; that is what we call tyranny. Too little freedom is just as bad, if not worse than anarchy.
But...
The communication officer of the watch, interrupted, call from USS Charles III, acknowledged our transmission. Also acknowledges your posting to the rank of Captain. And says with regrets the loss of your previous Captain and First Officer.
Keep running.
Because we don't identify whoever is chasing those Klingons.
Engaging.
There was a flash of warp energy, and the last transmission cut off.
Two of the four Mann, were destroyed outright, before their onboard computers could adapt to the weapons being used.
The Four were remembered.

 

[knightgrace]

The little girl was reading, in class, a history of the United Federation of Planets, in particular, about the FOUR, as they were called in the histories she had so far been exposed to...
The FOUR had occurred decades ago, yet, still rang out today. The ship names almost didn't matter, but what they did, did. What they had done, was simply incredible to her young mind, four old style Mann class ships losing two almost immediately, yet, not quite winning the day, but making enough of an event to be very well remembered. Klingons taught this part of the course, in particular Military History...
The ship that the girl was on, was a member of the Galaxy class - no, not that one, an earlier version, much earlier. She had been launched some ten years before, the same year as she was born...which she was just coming to realize that her birth was connected to her existence. Her eyes got big, with the dawning realization that she and the ship were the same age, that her classmates were also the same age...
It had never been explicitly mentioned, but...
When she go
Home, a few minutes later she was looking around at her home, as if for the first time, she was seeing it. Mom?!, she asked. Where are we? You are aboard a Federation starship, little one, her mother replied, as she distractedly nursed her newborn baby boy.
No, I mean, where are we, wh...her mind was really waking up, are, the ship?
Her mother's eyes got big, as she finally understood, what
what her daughter was getting at.
We are on the USS Galactica, and happen to be named after a fictional starship, we have been under continuous warp flight for ten years at warp factor seven. We are a mission of very long duration exploration and research, one way out to the stars...we have been headed out since the shakedown trials were declared complete.