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Wed Jul 30th, 2014 @ 6:11pm
Captain Vorn Krace
Name Vorn Tiberious Krace
Position Commanding Officer
Rank Captain
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 41 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5' 9" | |
| Weight | 160 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Dark Brown | |
| Eye Color | Brown | |
| Physical Description | Vorn has a handsome, charismatic face, with strong, sharp features, and framed by a full beard. His body is kept in good condition, and he considers himself to be of an average muscular build. Most often, he wears his duty uniform, though when appropriate, he does wear civilian clothes - most of the time jeans and a shirt; the classical image of a 21st Century middle-aged man, in the middle of 24th century cultures. |
Family
| Father | Adar Krace, Retired, Human (Deceased) | |
| Mother | Kelly Krace, Retired, Human |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Vorn is a man with a lot of patience. He is often content to wait for the opinions of those around him before acting, though he has widely known for acting on instinct when it is required of him. He trusts his officers and his gut above almost all else. He feels strongly for his crew and his ship, and will do everything in his power to protect them, even going so far as to risk a court-martial. Krace's relationship with his senior staff has had a lot of ups and downs over the years he has commanded them. Upon initially taking command, he had made a marked decision to be a very utilitarian commander, keeping to himself for his private hours, and working with them professionally only, in an attempt to reinforce their concept of him as nothing more than a superior officer. Over time, and as he got to know his crew better, he began to become more friendly towards them, occasionally being coaxed into spending some of his off hours with them. This attitude was radically shaken at the betrayal of his friend and first officer, Peter Brown within the first year of the transfer to the Iapetus, and the discovery that Abigail Valera, who was at the time one of the closest individuals on his staff to him. Again, Vorn made the conscious choice to distance himself once again from his officers, retreating from all personal friendships, bar that of his friend and once-again first officer, Acle Walex. Over the following years, Vorn eventually came to accept and deal with the feelings of betrayal, and once again began to open himself up to his crew. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Vorn has good experience with command from the various posts he has held in his 15 year career. He is also an exceptionally good listener and has the ability to quickly weigh up a collection of options presented to him and making a quick, valued and intelligent judgement on them. His strong instincts or 'gut feeling's very rarely steer him wrong. He is however fairly new to the command chair itself, having only been a Commanding Officer for a year upon the time he took command of the USS Iapetus in 2385, and for his rank, he is quite a young officer. |
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| Ambitions | Vorn had held the ambition since childhood to attain the command of a starship, and the coveted four-pip rank of a Starfleet Captain, a feat which he is immensely proud to have achieved. He has said privately that he will likely turn down any future promotions past his current rank without due persuasion, as he had always felt a stronger desire to be a captain than to be an admiral. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Krace has a fascination with history, particularly in Terran aviation and early spaceflight, and has several hand-made models of such historical craft on display in his quarters. The inspiration for this particular intellectual interest is unknown, though it contributed greatly to his decision to pursue a career as a helmsman within Starfleet. He also has a deep love of Terran literature, his favourite novellist being Terry Pratchet, an author who lived and worked with aspergers syndrome in the 20th and 21st centuries. Krace has always preferred reading novels in their original format in a book, rather than taking them in via a holo-visual display. Another area that interests Krace is music, specifically 20th century rock, and he considers himself a competent guitar player, keeping a replica acoustic in his quarters, though he has always lamented since taking command that he hasn't had much time to play it. He also has an interest in the field of acting, and would have perhaps considered it as a career choice if not for holograms almost making the profession obsolete. He has taken part in several historical plays on the holodeck, but has rarely taken his interest out of the private seclusion of the chamber. |
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| Languages | Federation Standard, Klingon |
| Personal History | ChildhoodKrace was born in 2346 in Oxford, England on Earth as the only child in the immediate family. The family was a small one; his mother was also an only child, and his father had only one brother two years his junior, who had died a year before Vorn was born. His birth brought a lot of happiness into the lives of his parents, right from the day they had learned of the pregnancy. More so, he had given them a purpose in their relative lonely lives; someone to look after, and to focus their energies into.Family history has always been important to the Krace family, and a fully detailed family tree is kept by the family, and can be traced back for many generations. The family has rarely risen to prominence, but nevertheless, that history is a key focus for the members of the family. With Adar's brother dead, and Vorn's parents coming to the age where another child was unlikely, Vorn became their sole hope for the continuance of the family name. He was told throughout his childhood of the history of the family; the Krace who had been raised from the ranks in the army during the Napoleonic Wars; the Kraces who had served at various levels of society throughout the 19th Century; the Krace who served in World War I and II, and of course the Krace who had been killed at the onset of the Third World War. Krace attended a state school for the majority of his childhood, progressing on to Oxford and Cherwell Valley College for his A-Levels. All throughout the latter four years of his education, the only subject on most of the tutors and students lips was that of their future. Throughout the final two years of his secondary education and into his college education, every decision that he made he was taught to do so with thoughts in mind of what he was aiming for; the career he wanted to push towards, to focus on, and achieve. For Krace and many of his friends, that choice had become simple; they all wanted to go to Starfleet. Starfleet was the ultimate dream of Krace's generation, and there was barely a student amongst his class who did not want to become a starship Captain. The entrance exams for Starfleet Academy were tough, but Vorn and many of his friends were able to pass them, and were enrolled as Cadets of the famous organisation. Bidding a somewhat emotional farewell to his overly proud parents, Vorn moved to live on-campus in San Francisco, near the Academy buildings. Starfleet AcademySan Francisco was a major culture shock to Krace. Though Oxford had hardly stagnated with the progression of technology, it was still very much a historic city, and one could feel that walking around the locale, and looking upon the ancient medieval university which dominated the city. San Francisco on the other hand had embraced the progression of technology whole-heartedly with both arms out-stretched, whilst still managing to make its more historic achievements stand out in the brilliant gleaming sunlight. Golden Gate Bridge dominated the bay onto which the Academy campus looked out on, much of the cities architecture was clearly of a modern construction design, and the sky was never devoid of shuttles and other small flight-enabled vehicles moving from one place to another. It was an incredible hub of activity, and also an incredible hub of species diversity.There was hardly a lack of aliens in Oxford, but there was hardly an abundance, either. Most of the other aliens that lived or visited Oxford were either close enough to human to not draw any attention to them, or had lived there for so long that to the local families they hardly seemed alien at all. San Francisco was full of a multitude of species; all shapes, sizes, colours and ancestries. On his first day in the city's busy streets, Vorn had to forcibly stop himself from standing and staring in awe at the diversity around him. Krace entered Starfleet Academy in 2364, his first year being a relatively quiet and calm one, with few events of note as he settled into his new way of life. His second year however saw his time take on a much more active note. He and his classmates - both old friends and new ones he had met since - had joined the list of resident troublemakers at the Academy, constantly thinking up new pranks to attempt on lecturers and students alike. This behaviour lasted for the entire of his second year, and well into his third. It was the local groundskeeper, an old man by the name of Boothby, who managed to finally alter Krace's behaviour towards a more studious path, after an incident with Admiral Hact-Toh. The Admiral had been walking into a fourth-year class, only to find that his trousers had been beamed away via a precise site-to-site transport. Whilst Krace and his classmates found the prank to be hilarious, the faculty at the Academy did not agree, and Krace was assigned community service duties with the groundskeeper as his punishment. The two men had plenty of time to talk during the long hours preening and looking after the magnificent gardens of the Academy, and it was through these conversations that Boothby embedded in Krace a new outlook on life. It was only many years afterwards that Krace learnt that Boothby was the man responsible for guiding many of the great captains in Starfleet's recent history through the Academy, and he was grateful to the man for his advice and unique way of looking at life and its opportunities. Krace studied shuttlecraft and starship piloting as his major at the Academy, but still hadn't made his mind up fully as to the career path he wanted to take at the time it came to choose his discipline, and so he also studied Security & Tactical and Science as his minors, creating a more busy class schedule than most had at the Academy. Early CareerEarly PostingsA member of the graduation class of 2368, Krace left the Academy a happy young man. Assigned as an Ensign on-board the USS Avalon as the helmsman. The Avalon was assigned initially to the area along the Romulan Neutral Zone, patrolling in order to keep an eye on the Romulans, who had only recently broken their 53-year absence from Galactic Politics, and had returned to make a name for themselves. It had become increasingly more important for the Federation to ensure that the stipulations of the Neutral Zone were complied with, but the Romulan's cloaking technology made it difficult to know how well they were doing that job. For Krace, the Neutral Zone was a perfect opportunity for him to test his piloting skills, as the variety of stellar phenomena could provide quite a challenge to a pilot, whether he was at the helm of a starship or a shuttlecraft. Krace stayed with his assignment on the Avalon as the Dominion War began to unfold in 2373, and the ship was reassigned to assist in the war effort.The Avalon served in a number of major engagements during the war, including the battle for the Chin'toka system, and the fateful final battle of the war to take the battle to the doorstep of Cardassia, and Krace, by this point the Chief Flight Control Officer on-board the starship, was responsible for avoiding fatal collisions in the heat and debris of battle numerous times. A number of small team missions were also launched from the Avalon during the war, during which time Krace proved himself as a valuable member of a ground team in a fire-fight engagement. Two years after the start of the War, it was over, with the Treaty of Bajor signed by the Founders, and the Alpha Quadrant at peace once again. By now the Avalon was becoming an old starship, and was in need of major structural works and refitting of her technologies in the aftermath of the War, and the majority of the crew were sent off to different assignments, leaving her Captain to regather most of the non-command crew over a year later, when the work on the ship was completed. It was during this reassignment phase that Krace joined the ranks of the USS London, receiving a glowing recommendation from Captain Arnatt, along with a promotion to Lieutenant. During the process of finding the Avalon crew new assignments, Krace submitted a request to transfer to the gold-collared security division, a request which was granted as he took up the dual role of Chief of Security and Chief Tactical Officer on the London, an exploration vessel in a relatively quiet part of the Galaxy, far removed from the former battle lines of the war zone. During his relatively short time on the London, Krace took part in a variety of missions, including one encounter with a small Borg scout ship. A year later, at the age of 30, Krace received a disturbing letter from home; his father had passed away as a result of lung cancer. While this news shattered Vorn's world, having been so close to his father, his main thoughts were with his mother. He knew that the nature of his current assignment he would not permit him to be able to return home for months, and so Krace instead focussed on keeping in regular subspace contact with his mother whilst he was away. Towards the end of the year, whilst the London was taking shoreleave at Starbase 219, Krace filed for a Leave of Absence and left for Earth to spend time with his mother, who was still distraught even months after the passing. Krace spent a year living with her on Earth, living off of the shoreleave pay he received from Starfleet and the pay from the odd errand he ran for a few of his friends, who had left Starfleet and started their own business together in their hometown of Oxford. It took a long time for Vorn and his mother to work through the grief of their loss. Eventually however, it became clear to them both that Vorn had to return to his career in Starfleet; he needed to be doing something with his life, and couldn't simply stay on Earth doing nothing for any longer. Bidding her farewell in May 2379, he promised he would keep in touch, and - feeling sorry for leaving her on his own whilst he returned to Starfleet - he bought her a nice healthy beagle as a pet to keep her company whilst he was away. Return to StarfleetVorn’s first assignment back in Starfleet was the USS Johnson, an Excelsior-class starship where he once again served as Chief of Security. The Johnson proved to be an interesting, if relatively short assignment of only two years. It was however an assignment which would serve to further Krace's career.During the last year of his time on the Johnson, the ship was involved in a number of skirmishes with hostiles throughout the Beta Quadrant - both small bands of pirates and larger, more organised groups with true resources behind them. Through Vorn’s strategic decisions and suggestions to the captain of the Johnson, the ship came out of each engagement intact and, more impressively, in a much better condition than their opponents considering how old the Excelsior-class of starships was by this time. It was due to his record on the Johnson that Starfleet offered him a promotion to Lieutenant Commander, and a post as both Chief Strategic Operations Officer and Second Officer aboard Deep Space 5. DS5 was situated right on the Federation border in the Galactic North, with unexplored space on one side and the Romulan Star Empire on the other. Whilst the Romulans still a primary interest to Starfleet Intelligence and strategic planners and as such demanded quite a lot of Krace's attention, a lot of his time aboard Deep Space 5 was also occupied with the defence of the station and its periphery facilities from pirate attacks from a species that was completely unknown to Starfleet at the time, beyond the odd encounters and skirmishes with the ships in the region. It was learnt in the years to come that this race was to be known as the Elyshans – an Empire proportionate in size to the Breen Confederacy, with numerous break-away pirate ‘factions’, whom were the renegades responsible for the attacks on Deep Space 5. CommandUSS LincolnAfter three years stationed on Deep Space 5, Starfleet Command offered Krace a new opportunity, and a rare one for an officer who hadn't served in an Executive Officer position in his career yet. Clearly however, one of the Admirals in the 8th Fleet had seen potential in him, and had liked what they saw. Seeing his youthful ambitions coming to fruition, Krace was offered command of the Ambassador-class starship, the USS Lincoln. As was standard for all new commanding officers, he was required to complete the relatively short command school course before taking on his new command, which he did under the tutelage of Captain Hackett on DS5. Promoted to the rank of full Commander, Krace set off to Starbase Ronin, where his new command awaited him.Krace's time on the Lincoln hardly got off on the right foot. Obviously having been on the wrong side of an officer in personnel with an odd sense of humour, Krace's first helmsman that he was sent was much more than eccentric, by any stretch of the word. Insubordinate and disrespectful, the Ensign flew the ship as though it was some sort of child's toy, performing a 'loop-de-loop' after they had left spacedock. Needless to say, Vorn was thoroughly appalled by the man's behaviour, and shocked that the man had even made it through the Academy. The man saw a very rapid reassignment off of the ship. That was not the end of his problems, however. Starbase Ronin's engineering crews, who had performed the most recent refit on the starship's phaser systems, had made a critical error in the power distribution network; rendering the phaser banks inoperable until they put into dock to correct the issue. On top of all of this, whilst taking the ship and crew out on a short cruise to stretch their legs, so-to-speak, the ship found itself in an engagement with a pair of pirate vessels, eager to capitalise on an obviously older design of starship. Thankfully, the torpedo launchers were not malfunctioning, and the Lincoln was able to defend herself well enough to see off their attackers. Engineering mishaps resolved, and the eccentric helmsman transferred off his ship, Krace was handed his first assignment. Due to the nature of his previous posting, and the in-depth knowledge of the local powers and current events his posting on Deep Space 5 had required him to have, it was deemed that he would be a suitable commander to send on a diplomatic run to the Maldoran system. The Maldorans were an amphibious species, with whom the United Federation of Planets had made First Contact with roughly a decade ago. The Maldorans were in the process of applying for status as a Federation member state, and Krace was sent in the capacity of a negotiator to continue them along the next stage of the process. It wasn't deemed to be an extremely sensitive assignment, and so Starfleet saw no need to send a more experienced captain in Vorn's stead. However, not everyone on Maldora was eager for Federation membership. The Defence Minister of the planet's government had concocted an elaborate plan which included the 'kidnapping' of himself, placing the blame of it on the Starfleet crew members on the planet's surface. With sufficient evidence planted to convince the Maldoran authorities that the Federation crew were responsible, the Lincoln was ordered to cut all communication with the surface, and Commander Krace and his crew were detained in their diplomatic quarters on the surface, pending an investigation. Thankfully, such a plan requires more than one man, and the more people involved in an operation, the more likely that someone is to be seen carrying out a part of it. With an informant sympathetic to the Starfleet crew coming forward to pass on information of the true reason behind the Defence Minister's disappearance, Krace was able to orchestrate his escape, upon which he made for the shipyards, where the Maldoran's first dual interstellar and amphibious craft was under construction. On the half-completed ship's bridge, Krace was able to find the Defence Minister, using the ship's systems to prepare for a torpedo launch against the Lincoln. In the brief brawl which ensued, Krace was able to subdue the Minister, and have the Maldoran authorities take him into custody. With the Minister now in custody, and evidence of the plot available, the Federation crew were released, and negotiations resumed. Krace informed the Maldoran officials that though he was confident that the Maldorans would eventually be able to enter the Federation, it wouldn't be today, as a planet petitioning for membership must have universal backing of its population before the petition would be accepted. Bidding the Maldorans a fond farewell, Krace and his landing party beamed back up to the Lincoln, and set a course for Starbase 386-B. After a very brief stay at the station, the Lincoln was ordered out to respond to a civilian distress call as the only Federation starship in the vicinity. After a rushed departure sequence, the ship set off towards the signal of a civilian freighter, contracted to transport cargo to the station; chief amongst which were a number of advanced shielding and weapons technologies, which Starfleet was very eager to ensure were kept out of the hands of rogues. The distress call stated that the freighter was under attack by a ship of Elyshan design, which likely belonged to one of the many rogue factions which plagued the area on the edge of the Elyshan Empire's borders. The pirate vessel led the Lincoln on a chase through the extremities of the Necron Expanse; a nebulous region of space which was known to eat away at starship hull materials if not properly shielded and reinforced. With some small amount of reinforcement, the pirate ship was able to enter the expanse for brief periods of time, forcing the Lincoln to follow in normal space along a greater overall distance. With higher engine speeds however, the Lincoln able to catch up with the ship, which then attempted to use the technologies which it had stolen. Attempting to fire the weapons technologies that had been hastily rigged up through an open cargo bay door, the pirate ship caused an explosion which reacted with the gases in the expanse, forming a temporary spacial anomaly which crushed the pirate ship, and pulled the Lincoln inside it. The anomaly had in fact formed a temporary subspace rupture, which had sent the Lincoln to a region of space known as the Brea Rift, which was in one of the spiral arms at the edge of the galaxy, where the crew of the USS Amazon were currently patrolling. The Amazon and her crew had been drawn into the middle of a conflict between two non-corporeal, and very powerful species. Living off of the specific brainwaves created by a person's mind as they enter sleep, the creatures had the ability to not only kill, but also to control the members of the crew of each ship the moment they fell asleep. The events were taking drastically out of the hands of the captains of either vessel however, with Lieutenant Commander Brown on the Lincoln falling unconscious, and then under the control of the species. Taking control of first the Amazon's, and then the Lincoln's environmental systems, he released an aneastathine gas into the ships, putting all crew members aboard each vessel to sleep. Thankfully the situation was resolved internally, before any more of either crew could come to any more harm; the race known as the Kosik (the beings who had taken control of Commander Brown and who had killed a number of the Amazon crew) were completely eradicated by their opposing force, of which Vorn was never told a name. The two ships began their long journey back to their home patrol zones in Federation territory. The journey was a long one for the Lincoln, as the ship's warp drives were older and slower than those of the Sovereign-class engines of the Amazon, and it was just over a month before the ship was able to put in at Starbase Ronin for resupply. Almost immediately upon arriving in the vicinity of Ronin however, the Lincoln detected Romulan weapons fire in the vicinity, and set off to investigate. The ship arrived just in time to save the damaged USS Tethys from destruction by a Romulan Warbird. After a brief meeting with Commander Iluvar aboard the ship, Krace offered to have the Lincoln tow the Tethys to its home port at Starbase 386. USS IapetusShortly after the arrival of both ships at Starbase 386, Krace was given some shocking news; the Lincoln was to be put in for an overhaul likely to last for well over a year, and as such Vorn and his entire crew would be reassigned to a new ship, the Luna-class USS Iapetus. The news also came with that of a promotion for Krace to the rank of Captain, achieving his long-standing goal to gain his four pips at the age of 38. The news brought up mixed feelings in Krace; though he was excited to be posted to the command of such a new and advanced starship, he had come to appreciate the Lincoln over the past year of commanding her, and held a great amount of affection for his first command. With his orders given however, Krace set about organising the transfer of materiel and personnel to the new ship.The first mission of the Iapetus was a simple cruise-without-portfolio; essentially leaving the vessel's first cruise parameters entirely up to the vessel's first commanding officer. Eager to test out the brand new and sophisticated sensor suite - the most advanced sensors in the Quadrant - Krace ordered his science officer to locate the nearest special anomaly and set a course for it. The anomaly the ship made a bee-line for was a dark matter nebula, made visible by the metreon particles being generated at its core. On the ship's approach to the nebula, Krace and his ship had their path blocked by obstacles at every turn, and the crew believed themselves to have stumbled into an old subspace minefield, though none was visible on any star charts nor any prior reports of the sector. As the ship drew closer, past the 'minefield' that the crew believed they were passing through, all of the psi-sensitives on the ship suddenly began to suffer from an intense, all-purpose attack on their minds - something which later expanded to all of the crew indiscriminately before finally focussing on just the Captain. The mental attacks were of a race of beings that appeared to be almost completely energy based, living in the centre of the nebula, and the source of the metreon particles. The creatures communicated in a way that was similar to telepathy - a direct 'mind'-to-'mind' exchange of information, but they did not understand the complexities of the humanoid brain, or the concept that a human's brain had various areas within it that were inactive and not used in regular thought processes. By seeking out the identity of the group's leader, and forcing their way into Vorn's mind in order to communicate with him, they partially stimulated one of these dormant regions of his brain, which caused him intense pain. Doctor LaToon, the ship's medical officer at the time, was able to use her own experiences with telepathy to assist the Captain in building a mental 'wall' to protect his mind from the intrusion, but could only offer pain relievers for the physical effects of the mental link. It was through the newly-formed link that Krace learnt that of the reason for the hostile reception the nebulae life forms gave the ship; a group of rogue freighters, crewed by individuals of the same set of species as some of the Iapetus crew, were harvesting the gases of the nebula in order to collect the metreon particles. The metreon particles within the nebula were a direct by-product of the life cycle of the life forms, and they inhabited the nebula because the specific collection of gases it contained were necessary for them to live. The harvesting and transport of these beings caused their death, as another prerequisite of their lives required that they coexist amongst high numbers of themselves - the mental link between each of the beings connected them almost like a hive, and regulated their living functions; separated from the link, they literally stop being able to function. With the importance of his task instilled in him through the mental bond, Krace became almost fanatical towards the task he set himself to stop the rogues, and ordered the ship to set off after the culprits. It was during this journey away from the nebula that Krace was finally able to get some peace, as the mental link diminished the further they got from the nebula, though the fanaticism in his task remained with him. As the ship followed the warp trail of a ship believed to be of a type capable of carrying out the harvesting process, the group was identified by Krace's friend and ship's intelligence officer, Acle Walex as an organisation called The Guarded. Having used his contacts within the intelligence community and the associated informants, Walex had discovered that The Guarded had recently boasting on the black market to have technology and resources which allowed them to create a metreon cascade, which was to be sold to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, the ship's stellar cartographer and science personnel had managed to track stray metreon particles, ion trails, and run a prediction on the course of the ship they were shadowing to the Gormali system - a fairly remote, yet moderately busy system, with a minimal Starfleet presence - one patrol passed through roughly twice annually. Krace and the crew of the Iapetus were able to board and capture the freighter that had last harvested from the nebula, although none of the energy beings onboard were still alive. With a few officers stationed onboard he freighter, it was sent into the Gormali system under duress, allowing the Starfleet team to board the research station the Guarded were utilising to design the metreon cascade. Once onboard, the team did three things; firstly, they wiped the computer data of all information regarding the Cascade. Secondly, they planted a tracking device in the lab where the scientists had been working on the cascade, and thirdly they sabotaged the station's shield grid. Warping in as soon as the signal was received, the Iapetus was able to transport its away team onboard, and destroy the lab that had been used by the Guarded scientists, before once again warping out again. Krace later reflected that his actions during the incident were not wholly based upon Starfleet principles, and that the influence of the energy beings in his mind had affected his actions and his thought processes. Though the mental link between Krace and the energy beings dissipated as the distance increased between them, and it has been some time since he last felt their presence in his mind, Krace has never truly felt that the link has ever left him for good, as he often feels he has a constant niggling at the back of his mind. Any doctor he has seen however has been unable to say one way or the other, and the remaining feeling of an ongoing link may just be a figment of his imagination. TreacheryEn-route to the Gormali system, Krace was hit by the stab of betrayal, as his first officer – Lieutenant Commander Peter Brown – abandoned the ship, disabling it temporarily in the process and destroying the ship's long-range communications transmitter array. Due to the importance of his current mission imprinted on his mind, Krace had opted to continue straight for Gormali rather than pursue the renegade officer, but once his task was done, he knew that he had to redirect his attentions to the problematic officer.Brown had only destroyed the transmitter hardware, the ship was still able to receive messages over subspace, and they soon heard of a disturbance at Starbase Ronin. The coincidence was too much to ignore, as Ronin was the location where the USS Lincoln had been moved to to begin her refit, and Krace set course immediately for the station. Ronin had been rocked by the explosion of the shuttle Brown had stolen in order to leave the Iapetus, and in the ensuing chaos, he had been able to steal the Ambassador-class starship. Upon discovering this, Krace managed to convince the now-Commodore Iluvar - who had risen to the position of Task Force Commanding Officer for that sector - to officially assign him and the Iapetus the task to investigate the incident and track down Brown, bringing him to justice. It cost him the favour owed by the rescue Krace and the Lincoln had performed of the Tethys months previously, but his request was granted, and the Iapetus set out once again, this time on Brown's tail. The hunt took over a month, and led them to the Devil’s Nebula; a region of space which was considered highly dangerous to any ship, and a nebula from within very few ships returned. Brown had tracked down his own father - Captain John Brown - to the region, who was in command of the USS Sierra-A; the only starship known to regularly enter an exit the nebula unscathed, due to a unique shield configuration that protected them from the atmospheric conditions within the gaseous cloud. Captain Brown was an agent of Starfleet Intelligence who had seemingly gone rogue; he had kidnapped the former fiancé of Peter, and had used her to lure his son into the nebular after him. Krace was able to catch up to the aged and half-dismantled Lincoln before it was able to enter the nebula. Using the command prefix code for the ship provided to him by Commodore Iluvar, Krace was able to disable the ship, an beam on board. After discovering the cause for Brown's action,s Krace made a deal with him; in exchange for assisting him in the capture of his corrupt father, Peter would accompany Krace back to Starbase Ronin in the Iapetus' brig to stand trial. The Bevrudl IncidentThe next few months were spent with Krace commanding the Iapetus through a simple patrol of the Elyshan-Federation border – or, rather, the Federation border with unclaimed space, across which the Elyshan Empire’s own border lay, the space between them serving as the equivalent of an ocean or a sea separating terrestrial territories. With the conclusion of the patrol period, Krace was immediately given orders to proceed into that unclaimed space to the Bevrud system to negotiate yet another treaty paving the way for entrance to the Federation. This mission proved to be even more troublesome than his last diplomatic assignment, with a coup starting upon the arrival of the Federation representatives and the surprising companions in the form of an Elyshan delegation, as the late First Minister had insisted on maintaining a neutral stance between the two powers right until the very end of the negotiations. The Federation and the Elyshan Empire had been almost in a state of cold war for over a year, and the Bevrud system was in a very strategic position between the two powers, and tensions were ever rising between them.The coup began with the execution of the First Minister by a member of his own staff, and Krace, his away team and the Elyshan delegation were taken into captivity, the mission looking to be a complete failure. However, Starfleet had stationed an agent on the planet in the months leading up to the Bevrudl's request for a representative from the Federation; they knew that the system was of strategic importance, and that the system could be key to preventing the Elyshans having an open passage through which to launch an attack, and so Starfleet Intelligence had sent Lieutenant Commander Sara Archer undercover, to monitor the situation on the planet, and inform them about any potential advances made there by the Elyshan Empire. Commander Archer heard about the captain's capture pretty quickly, as the coup leaders - allied with one of the rogue factions considered outlaws even in the Elyshan sphere of influence - had publicly announced their actions to the planet. It took her a few days to locate and get to them however, due to the strict curfew the planet's new would-be leaders had put in place. Able to forcibly extract Krace, his away team and the Elyshan leader - the rest of the Elyshans had been killed already by the rogues - to a safe house she had set up, before revealing herself to them who she really was. With the help of the intelligence operative, the Starfleet officers - with the help of the Elyshan - were able to lead a three-pronged attack on the command centre for the coup's leadership, removing them from power and removing the rogue faction from the planet's surface. The Elyshan captain agreed not to pursue a claim to the system, in exchange for being given the rogue's ship and allowed to go free. With Bevrud returned to the control of the political parties of the planet, and a friendly overture from the Federation showing them who they should ally with, the system was all set to begin official talks to join the Federation. Task Force 38After returning to Deep Space 7 at the conclusion of the mission to Bevrud, Krace and his ship were given new orders, and a transfer. They would be leaving the 8th Fleet, and transferring to the 4th Fleet, and Task Force 38 - the spearhead of the Delta Exploration Initiative, which utilised an Iconian Gateway to travel to their headquarters in the Delta Quadrant, nicknamed The Round Table. It was a three-month journey straight across the width of the Federation to reach the Union Gateway in the Beta Quadrant, and the crew set out within days of receiving the new orders.Krace knew that his officers would greatly benefit from a brief stop to see Earth and their families en-route, and so planned for a week's stop-over in orbit of the Federation's homeworld. Though most of his time was spent dealing with the administration duties of the ship, he was able to make a visit down to his mother's house; the first time he had visited her since the death of his father, ten years hence. She had done well living on her own, but missed both Vorn and Adar greatly. The beagle that Krace had bought her just before departing for the Johnson had even had a litter of three pups; each nameless, since Krace's mother could never recall which was which. As he left the house to return to the ship, she insisted that he take one of the pups with him, to which he reluctantly agreed. The next month of the journey passed almost without anything occurring, until they reached the region of Regulus, the location of the original research carried out by Dr. Marcus on the Genesis Project. The USS Marconi was in the region, continuing research into its effects and usefulness on a classified mission, but required the use of the Iapetus' more advanced sensor array in order to track down some questionable readings that they had recently begun getting in the region. As the Marconi lowered its shields to beam Captain Kaldor over, a Romulan agent from the IRV Ra'kholh beamed on board the Nova-class vessel, before proceeding to steal all data on the Genesis Project and departing, setting an explosive device inside the ship to destroy it and any concrete evidence of Romulan tampering. The explosion however had an effect on the Romulan vessel's cloak, which allowed the sensors on the Iapetus to detect it, unknown to the Romulans. Krace ordered a pursuit course as soon as they were able. The ship tracked the vessel inside The Triangle to a station known colloquially as Pirates Haven, officially called Starbase 102. Krace's team was able to capture two of the Romulan crew members, including a Sub Commander Nevarn and - after some persuasion - were able to learn enough about the Ra'kholh to board it, and retrieve the stolen Genesis data. Unfortunately, Nevarn then proceeded to blow up his own ship, escaping in a warp shuttle. Krace made the decision to allow him to leave, instead focussing the ship's time and energy in retrieving as many individuals onboard the Ra'kholh and getting the Iapetus to a safe distance in time. When the ship did explode, there were no survivors from the Romulan crew still stuck onboard, and Nevarn had masked his warp trail, making him impossible to follow. Dejected at the loss, but grateful that the Genesis data had been retrieved, Krace set a course for the Union system, and the pathway to the Delta Quadrant. |
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| Service Record |  2364 · Starfleet Academy · Cadet (First Year) 2365 · Starfleet Academy · Cadet (Second Year) 2366 · Starfleet Academy · Cadet (Third Year) 2367 · Starfleet Academy · Cadet (Fourth Year) 2368-2371 · USS Avalon · Helmsman 2371-2375 · USS Avalon · Chief Flight Control Officer 2375-2378 · USS London · Chief Security/Tactical Officer 2378-2379 · Extended Leave 2379-2381 · USS Johnson · Chief Security/Tactical Officer 2381-2382 · Deep Space 5 · Chief Strategic Operations Officer/Second Officer 2382-2383 · USS Lincoln · Commanding Officer Late 2383-Early 2384 · USS Lincoln · Commanding Officer 2384- · USS Iapetus · Commanding Officer
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