Back to Base

Posted on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 @ 1:05am by Captain Vorn Krace

Mission: Heart of an Explorer
Location: USS Iapetus - Solaria Nebula
Timeline: MD01 1435hrs

The orange clouds of the Solaria Nebula parted slightly as they emitted the saucer section of the Luna class starship, followed quickly by her engineering section and underswept nacelles as the ship emerged into the sphere of calm within the storm that was the home to Starbase 900 and Planet Camelot.

It was odd that Captain Vorn Krace had only been here once, and only been assigned to the Delta Exploration Initiative for a single month, and yet he had already come to think of this system as 'home'. Of course, the real home, after the Iapetus was Earth, but this system was the ship's safe haven in an otherwise unknown and most possibly hostile environment, thousands of light years away from Starfleet Headquarters.

"Mister Cook," he said from his chair at the centre of the bridge. The non-commissioned helmsman who had been with the ship for as long as the captain could remember turned his chair slightly towards the captain's. "Set a course for Starbase 900. Best safe speed."

"Aye, sir."

As the Petty Officer went about his task, Krace thought about their journey back here. It had been almost half again as long as the journey they had taken to get out to Drekasta, but at least the transit through the Safe Passage had proven to be much shorter this time round, with the storms in a quiet cycle. Their slow speed was owed to the damage their systems had taken as a result of their 'captives' unleashing shaped charges and computer code into the system. Though Lieutenant Drex and his team had been working frantically during the journey over in an attempt to ensure that the station engineers had nothing left to do, the captain knew that it was too much of a task to do en-route. They still couldn't get warp eight out of the engines, and impulse drive had a maximum of half speed. Added to that the lack of transporters, minimal shields and a shot targetting system (Drex had managed to get the weapons themselves working again), there was too much for a ship-board engineering team to do in just under three weeks.

Even so, to get the warp engines functioning at all was a feat, especially to be able to push them to warp seven. Krace had already put the engineer in for recognition en-route, and smiled to himself as he thought about the message he had sent off to Nine Hundred before their arrival. He should be due to receive the Task Force Commander's approval on the promotions in short order once they had docked, and he looked forward to the looks on the faces of the officers when he presented them.

It took a little while longer for them to traverse the system than would be normal, due to their reduced speed, but it still was only an hour before they had reached the traffic-controlled zone surrounding the Starbase.

"Incoming hail from the station, sir," Biggins said from the ops console. "Let's hear it," the captain ordered.

"USS Iapetus, this is Starbase docking control. Please proceed to dry dock berth beta, and prepare to receive our engineers."

"Understood Starbase Control," the captain responded over the comm. channel. He gave a nod to Cook to do as instructed.

"Rear Admiral Zhan has just arrived from the Alpha Quadrant, and requests Captain Krace and Commander Walex meet with him as soon as is convenient."

"We'll be there," Krace said, smiling slightly as the operations officer on the other side of the line realised he'd been speaking to one of the mentioned officers all the time. "Iapetus out."

---------------
Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer
USS Iapetus