Epis­ode Num­ber: 5×16

Writ­ten by: Jon Crew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 28^th June 2025

Guest Stars:

• Rear Admir­al Sh’lyath: Andori­an com­mand­er of the 17^th Fleet, a bit of a martinet.
• Com­modore Stonn: Sh’lyath’s Vul­can adjut­ant, known for his stra­tegic experience.
• Cap­tain Sonia Drake: Young, ambi­tious Human com­mand­er of the U.S.S. Sov­er­eign, Sh’lyath’s flagship.

Our ships are giv­ing a good account of them­selves in the face of a fierce Domin­ion onslaught.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 51540.5

Plot: Con­clud­ing the battle with the Jem’hadar raid­ers, the 20^th Fleet detach­ment com­pletes its jour­ney to Star­base 12.

The ‘A’ Plot: The four sur­viv­ing raid­ers press their attack. One closes with Cour­ageous on the right flank, while anoth­er, dam­aged, ves­sel engages with Lex­ing­ton on the left. The remain­ing pair, deprived of their prey, sweep around to attack Minotaur and Lex­ing­ton from the rear.

While Azon­an works to restore Lex­ing­ton’s battered shields, Cour­ageous and its oppon­ent exchange fire at close range. At this dis­tance, both ships’ shields col­lapse and they suf­fer mul­tiple breaches, but Cour­ageous’s ablat­ive armour and phaser can­non give her the edge. The raid­er is left a drift­ing wreck, while the Star­fleet ves­sel retreats to carry out emer­gency repairs.

The dam­aged fight­er fires on Lex­ing­ton, caus­ing extens­ive struc­tur­al dam­age des­pite Raynor’s defence. Quinn imme­di­ately takes evas­ive action, as Raynor fin­ishes off the raider.

The final Jem’hadar fight­ers launch their own attack runs, but both miss wildly. Minotaur makes short work of the wing­man, as Lex­ing­ton des­troys the lead­er, and they are finally able to take stock of their situation.

Minotaur goes to assist Cour­ageous, while Lex­ing­ton fol­lows Franz, catch­ing up to the flee­ing freight­er quickly, and per­suad­ing them they are safe.

The con­voy tra­verses the remain­ing four light years to to Star­base 12, where they announce their pres­ence to the loc­al traffic con­trol service.

Upon dock­ing at the aging sta­tion, Kon­in and his seni­or officers are summoned to meet their new com­mand­ing officer, Rear Admir­al Sh’lyath, and his staff. While the Andori­an has a sol­id record, Kon­in finds him insuf­fer­able. The admir­al seems more inter­ested in image than res­ults, with a keen interest in reg­u­la­tions and form­al­ity. He is also some­what dis­missive of the Lex­ing­ton CO’s recent promotion.

By con­trast, his fleet liais­on officer, Com­modore Stonn, is much more approach­able. The Vul­can takes an interest in their recent fight and explains that raid­ing groups like these are unfor­tu­nately com­mon. With so many ships fight­ing on the front lines, the home­worlds do not have enough capa­city to cov­er all pos­sible approach routes, espe­cially when inde­pend­ent sys­tems provide more cov­ert entry points. Part of Lex­ing­ton’s role will be to help main­tain the early warn­ing network.

The officers take the oppor­tun­ity to learn more about Jem’hadar and Car­das­si­an tac­tics, before Sh’lyath informs them that he will assign the com­mand­er of his flag­ship, Cap­tain Sonia Drake, to famil­i­ar­ise them with loc­al pro­ced­ures and reg­u­la­tions. He then dis­misses them, giv­ing them 48 hours liberty while Lex­ing­ton is repaired and fit­ted with coun­ter­meas­ures to the Jem’hadar polaron disruptors.

That even­ing, the Lex­ing­ton seni­or crew vis­its the main Star­fleet bar on the star­base, where they meet Cap­tain Drake, who turns out to be young and ambi­tious. Drake seems naive, keen to learn from Kon­in’s com­bat exper­i­ence, but Quinn soon runs afoul of her tem­per, when he tries to address her in too famil­i­ar a fashion.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, their leave is cut short as they are called out to invest­ig­ate a miss­ing shuttle.

The Arc: The con­voy arrives at Star­base 12, keen to take on the Dominion.

Obser­va­tions: Rear Admir­al Sh’lyath is the com­mand­ing officer of the 17^th Fleet, based at Star­base 12. An Andori­an, he has a his­tory of sol­id organ­isa­tion skills, but has only led the fleet in one battle; while Star­fleet won, it would have been dif­fi­cult to lose. As Kon­in notes, he appears to have an excess­ive interest in the appear­ance and con­duct of his com­mand, the archetyp­al mar­tin­et. His fleet liais­on is Com­modore Stonn, a calm Vul­can with a sol­id grasp of strategy and logist­ics. Cap­tain Sonia Drake is the remark­ably young com­mand­ing officer of the U.S.S. Sov­er­eign, first of her class, and Sh’lyath’s flagship.

Star­base 12 is one of Star­fleet’s old­est space sta­tions, a mid-23^rd cen­tury Watchtower-class sta­tion orbit­ing in the Gamma 400 sys­tem in the Fries-Pos­nikoff Sec­tor. Lying on the main trade route from the core worlds to Beta Rigel, it is with­in easy reach of a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant inde­pend­ent worlds, includ­ing Ori­on and Naus­icaa. The 17^th Fleet is cur­rently based at the sta­tion, provid­ing defence against Domin­ion raids in the region.

Loc­al polit­ics with­in the region can be com­plex. Although only thirty light years from Earth, Fed­er­a­tion mem­bers are a minor­ity with­in the sec­tor, although they include Cor­id­an. Trade and crime are dom­in­ated by Ori­on interests, with Naus­icaan mer­cen­ary groups fre­quently found to be involved in loc­al con­flicts. The large volume of inde­pend­ent space makes this sec­tor dif­fi­cult to police.