A holo display of Lohman’s Dreadnought design floated in the center of the room. Some minor details were different, others were more enhanced – almost as if someone had tasked technical artists with making Lohman’s rough design look lifelike.
“That’s pretty good for a holo display.” Lohman marveled. They approached it, circling the display.
“You made pretty detailed blueprints.” Admiral Davidson said. “It was what I needed to push this through Fleet Admiralty a few years ago.”
Lohman looked startled.
“How did you do this?” Davidson asked. “All this, in eighteen hours. You were incredibly specific. Transwarp, like the Excelsior. Three sets of deflector shields. Massive ones, too. Redesigned the power plant, and you even stuck an extra one in there. That was good planning, good foresight. You redesigned warp engines, phasers, Photon Torpedo’s. You stuck the tractor beam of a tug on it and the honeycomb interior design of the Star Empire, but kept the traditional Star Fleet look on the exterior. That helped me tremendously to sell this project.”
“What? Is Starfleet going to build this, Admiral?” Lohman couldn’t look away, entranced. This was his design from Academy days, just three years ago. Now someone was taking it seriously.
“I’m glad to see you’re as much in the dark as 99% of Starfleet. That means our plan worked.” The Admiral said. “It’s like this. Let me fill you in on some history. And the word history has a lot of complicated meanings where this project is going. I first saw your design the same day as your little escapade in Starfleet. I was a commodore, in charge of a Star Base. The commander of the Academy sent this to me. He thought it was funny, fitting… and good. Too good. He knew I was in the running for the Starfleet Ship Design and Refit command. By chance, I had one of the leading Star Fleet ship designers standing nearby when you did it. I showed him the design, and he was silent for about ten minutes, zooming in on parts of it like I’d just introduced him to the object of his dreams. He must have spent an hour staring at your design for the power plants, the system for them to work in sync, and the trans-warp engines.”
“Turns out they built only one of these things, the Star Empire. The unknown part of the story is that the Star Empire had the first version of the trans-warp drive built into it, like what you specified. They’d never fired up all three engines. So they assigned to the project the very woman who’d stopped the Star Empire.”
“Piper.” Lohman said.
“Right. She took the thing out to the edges of the galaxy and fired up all three trans-warp engines at once. They’d never done it until then. Starfleet never tuned the trans-warp properly, and it created a mother of a wormhole. A real monster.”
Lohman shuddered. Wormhole. An ugly word to any Starfleet officer, and every crew member’s nightmare. Instead of bending space, and allowing a star ship to cross at higher points where things were nearly touching, a wormhole was the opposite. It was a hole under space, dragging in the object and creating the wormhole, where reality warps itself. Physics didn’t work in a wormhole, and sometimes it did ugly things, human beings sliding between the molecules in the floor, getting stuck, part in and part out of a wall or floor or bulkhead. It was a nasty way to die.
“So Captain Piper jettisoned the saucer section, and detonated the rest of the ship. It stopped the out-of-phase warp, and they made it back into regular space. Most of the crew didn’t survive. Massive explosion, disrupting time and space. Vulcan scientists tell us it separated our dimension into multiple time events. Different realities, or some such. Hold a finger on that thought, because it’s about to mean something. Anyhow, they jettisoned the entire project. Until your design.”
“Why mine?” Lohman asked.
“Because, according to the experts, your design fixed the out-of-phase properties. We now have something we haven’t had since 20th Century Ocean Navies – A Battleship.”
“Wait! My design is good?” Lohman asked, surprised.
“According to Commodore Scott, yes. That’s why I recommended they fast track your career for command. You got mad enough at an idiot of a Professor – the uncle of the Captain you were insubordinate to – and overnight created the ultimate peace keeping ship.” The Admiral flipped the displays, showing the blueprints one section at a time, one level at a time. “Man, this thing is a brute.” The Admiral commented, watching the blueprints change. “This ship is going to keep the peace. Her, and eleven others.”
“Are we going to build her?” Lohman asked. His pulse was racing. This was not a reprimand. This was some kind of offer. Why would an Admiral tell a lowly lieutenant all this? Especially one who’d totally ruined his chances at a decent career…
“No.” The Admiral said. Lohman exhaled, deflated. The Admiral tapped the display in mid-air, and the blueprints disappeared, forming a blank white screen in the middle of the room, nothing on it.
The Admiral looked at Lohman for a long moment and tapped the display again. “Computer. Access FILE NCC-2100.”
“Classified. That file does not exist.” The computer said. Lohman raised an eyebrow. Why would they classify a file that did not exist?
“Admiral Davidson, override 7304.”
The display lit up. Lohman was awestruck. There was a Dreadnought, imposing and powerful, suspended in a Stardock somewhere.
It was not a simulation. It was live video feed.
“We’ve already built her.” The Admiral said as Lohman walked in circles around it.
She was huge. Massive was the word. Gleaming. Emblazoned on her hull was the code NCC-2100. Beneath it, read the immense letters: USS FEDERATION. He walked along the display as if in a trance, his fingers trailing along the table beneath the projection reverently.
It was not a graphic. It was not a holo. This was live feed.
“Get her operational, son.” Admiral Davidson said. “Tonight, you’re going to get a good night’s sleep. Don’t unpack. I’ve got an Admiral’s Courier ship that’s going to get you to the space dock where she’s floating. You’re going to do a shakedown cruise without making it look like a shakedown cruise. And then you’re taking her on a five-year mission. Keep us safe, son.”
“Where am I taking her?” Lohman asked.
“Out to the Romulan border. We’ve got all kinds of trouble out there. Seems they’ve got a new Praetor, and he’s causing a lot of trouble. I think they finally solved the whole Rihannsu/Romli issue they’ve been battling for a thousand years. The Rom’s are in dominance now, and the Rihannsu are on the outs. That’s not good. We were counting on the corruption of the Rihannsu to keep the Romulans from being more a threat than the Klingons. The outer rim is hollering to Starfleet to save them.”
“Are you expecting a second war?” Lohman wondered.
“I’m not expecting it. I’m fully convinced.” The Admiral said. “We saw all kinds of hints it was coming back on the days of the famous five-year missions. Now it’s thirty years later, and yeah… there’s going to be trouble.”
“Who do you have picked to command her, sir?” Jealousy rose in Lohman. This was a ship he would give anything to command. It would probably go to Piper, he was sure. Maybe if he played his cards right… they’d give him another chance. And he’d get the chance to serve on it in some fashion. And I can tell everyone how the new transporter chief designed their ship.
“You will, son.” Admiral Davidson answered. “You will. Starfleet already picked Captain Joseph Lohman to command her just two years ago.”
“Captain?” Lohman’s jaw dropped.
“We may have forgotten to tell you about it. We promoted you before you even graduated from the Academy. Had to keep that classified to keep idiot commanders, idiot Academy instructors and idiot starship captains from protesting.”
“Not too many of those.” Lohman said.
“On the contrary. Ten percent of Starfleet is incompetent, ten percent is super-competent, ten percent are idiots, and you’ll find the other two-thirds floating in between.” Davidson shut off the feed. “Come with me. Commodore Scott is dying to meet you. Let’s get some dinner, and then I’ll pin those captain’s bars on you. We’ve got a lot to go over, and you’re leaving in twelve hours.”
