Star Trek: Wings of the Renaissance

A Star Trek fanfiction by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan-based work of prose. Star Trek is the property of CBS and Paramount. Please support the official release.


Kurill Prime, The Gamma Quadrant

2371


Suref found the will to push Eris back from his thoughts, and she pulled her hand away from his temple. She was panting hard, grinning in exhilaration. He could feel her sadistic glee at the scope of her powers. She was thrilled at her accomplishment, practically licking her lips as her chest heaved.

"Yes… Yes, just like I thought. I've gained so much." Eris chuckled, almost sounding inebriated. "What a rush!"

The Vorta woman at the other end of the room was silent, but she did stiffen slightly. Eris ignored her, and again reached up to touch his face. Suref again called upon his Vulcan discipline, his mental shields going up against her probes. Already he felt them straining against the force of her mental powers, the sweat beading on the throbbing veins on his temples.

"Give me more!" Eris demanded. "Give me more or I'll tear your mind apart!"

"Gnngh… Nngh…!" Suref closed his eyes. One of her probes brute forced their way past his defenses, seeking out thoughts dealing with the fighters, his mission…


The briefing rooms at Outpost 444 were all still done up in the style of the 2260s. Pastels and stone-like wall panels. It was at odds with the modern screens with LCARs on the walls, and the black conference table itself in front of the rows of chairs the pilots sat in.

Suref himself sat in the first row of seats near the windows, the faint moonlight of Valo II's companions shining through the transparent aluminum. His fellow pilots were sitting in the other chairs, Andros right next to him while Ro'ad muttered things to Jin behind them. Master Chief Petty Officer Bein "Pops" Heucke stood near the window, leaning against the wall with a wry expression on his porcine face. Ensign Yui was with a number of the other greener pilots, clustered together for protection near the senior officers of the squadron.

It was natural for them to congregate: Numerous other pilots filled the seats on the other side, all new and all brought along by the Argonaut with the new fighters. Some looked quite young, recent graduates of the academy. Others looked more seasoned. A blonde Bajoran woman in operations gold sat at the front, next to a defiant and cocky looking human in command red. He shot Suref a glare when he looked at him, then shifted his gaze back up front. A Bolian woman with white hair (possibly a hybrid) in engineering gold was leaning forward eagerly.

In front of the screen at the table stood Commander Ther'in Shran, Warrant Officer Keiko Matsunaga, and Mora… Lieutenant Mora Chai. The first two were giving the briefing on the new fighters they'd brought along, which he was paying attention to… For the most part.

The way Lieutenant Chai kept staring at him while she sat behind the table also ate up a great deal of his focus.

Keiko tapped a few keys on the table, and a diagram showing the schematics of the Peregrine-class fighter appeared on the screen overhead, as Shran stood to the side.

"The Peregrine-class is essentially a tuned up, more heavily armed courier spacecraft," Keiko announced, with a slight snort of derision. "This is what the Starfleet Starfighter Corps has had to work with for the past half century, a glorified shuttlecraft. This," and she switched the view to a diagram of the fighters she and Shran had ridden into the base, "is the Valkyrie. It's an actual starfighter-The first one Starfleet has built in decades!"

She grinned proudly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Designed, developed and built by me, when I was working on the Defiant Project!"

"Which has also been activated, and assigned to Deep Space Nine," Shran added. The diagrams switched again, showing off a compact, blunt little starship in comparison to the much smaller Valkyries. "They're based on the same technology base: Anti-Borg weapons and systems."

"So Starfleet's actually taking this seriously," Pops observed. He smirked and let out a bit of grunt like laughter. "That's a nice change of pace."

"And you personally designed these things?" Andros asked Keiko, raising an eyebrow. "Do they turn into giant robots?"

"Sadly, that's a decade or two out," Keiko admitted. Andros sighed in exaggerated relief.

"Thank God," he muttered. Keiko shot him a smirk.

"But I was able to fit almost everything else I wanted into these first production models," she said with a grin.

"Oh God," Andros prayed, and the briefing room broke into a great deal of laughter. It was not something Suref joined in, but he could feel the tension that had plagued the base for months dissipating through the action.

Keiko shook her head and moved on, her hands resting on the table.

"The Valkyrie is armed with one forward heavy phaser cannon, two heavy pulse phaser cannons, and internal magazines for twelve photon, quantum, or other torpedoes with additional hardpoints for multiple weapons. Including my micro-photon pods or tricobalt warheads for use against large structures. Or additional phaser or other beam weapons, if you'd like. For defenses? Well, Lieutenants Suref and Gottschalk are of course familiar with the warp signature distortion system. But in addition, the Valkyries have the most sophisticated scanning and jamming sensor system we could get, ablative armor, and metaphasic shields."

Her glee was accentuated by how her teeth gleamed in her grin.

"Even metaphasic shields? Wow," Jin spoke out. He shrank back at the looks everyone gave him, and the Tullian cleared his throat, "I mean that I've only seen those on advanced science ships."

"Starfleet finally stopped holding out on us," Keiko exhaled happily. "And of course, plenty of other new features we're all going to work out properly!"

Suref could feel Andros tense up a bit next to him. He could understand his friend's reluctance.

"So, when are we going to take the fight to the Dominion, sir?" Andross asked, standing up straight. Shran shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "We have a lot of new ships and faces to break in." He nodded to the group of new recruits. "We're going to have a get together after for you to all get to know each other after this. Some of them are freshly minted from the Academy, while others are not."

His eyes rested on the cocky looking young man up front. The young man smirked back.

"Some are on lighter duties as they recover from certain experiences," Shran stated. The blonde Bajoran woman tensed a bit. He very deliberately avoided looking over at the Bolian girl.

"And some are here to try and keep them out of trouble," Shran deadpanned. The Bolian girl grinned brightly, and waved her arms.

"I know when someone's talking about me!" She cried. She shrank back at Shran's stony expression. "Ah, sir."

"And we have a full squadron of untested starfighters to work the kinks out of," he finished. "Thankfully, we have some time for this. The Defiant is embarking on a mission into the Gamma Quadrant to contact the Founders of the Dominion in the next week. I expect us to be ready for battle by then."

"To go with them as an escort?" Suref asked. Shran closed his eyes, and held in a long sigh.

"No," Shran stated. "They will be making their mission solo. They have a cloaking device loaned from the Romulans for this mission."

That set a lot of tongues wagging. Shran shook his head, and his steely expression silenced the conversations.

"No. Our mission will be to find and support them if their mission does not go well," he stated.

He looked around at his squadron. He then took hold of the table and bodily lifted it, and tipped it over, letting it smack onto the deck hard enough to make almost everyone jump. Not Suref though. Keiko just pushed back, smiling softly.

Shran took hold of a chair, and sat down on it. He stared at them intently in the eyes as he leaned forward, a hand resting on his knee.

"I want to look you all in the eyes when I talk to you," Shran declared. This immediately got everyone's attention. Seeing he had it, he continued.

"I know this isn't the assignment many of you wanted," he began, "and I know many of you have had problems in the past."

Suref retained his stoic exterior. This was a speech he was quite familiar with. It was the same one the commander had made to him when he'd first come to Outpost 444.

"Starfleet isn't what you thought it was," Suref continued, "or you've been through something that's shaken your career. Or maybe you've just plain screwed up." He sucked in a breath through his nostrils as his antenna twitched slightly. "I know the feeling. I've been there. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be scared."

Shran was silent for a moment, looking everyone in the eyes, before he resumed.

"We're facing a threat unlike anything the Federation, the Alpha Quadrant has faced before. A massive empire that is aggressive and imperialistic. Whatever your pasts, your problems, your issues… Work them out. I will do whatever I can for you, but ultimately, you need to figure out how to work with us… Or not. If you do, you'll be part of the squadron. Nothing further will be said. If you don't? You can leave. Figure things out yourself. Ultimately, it's your choice. But if you stay… You fight. Together." His gaze swept around them a final time.

"We fight. Together."

He stood up, and he put his hands behind his back.

"Dismissed."

They rose, and soon headed out of the briefing room in small clumps, still together based on the newcomers and the old timers. Yet even the cocky young blonde man was looking just a bit more serious. Suref caught Chai's eye, but tried to evade it. He tried to vanish into the crowd of the new recruits… And then a pair of arms seized his left arm, pulling him in like a tractor beam. He turned back to look into the dark, mischievous eyes of Mora Chai.

"Lieutenant," he greeted, tightly, even for a Vulcan. Mora grinned, and even now, it seemed to make the world disappear.

"You weren't going to leave me to head to the room unescorted, were you?" She asked sweetly, her long curly hair shaking slightly behind her.

"It is not a formal event," Suref replied, "no escort is required."

"Humor me," Mora said gently, "It's what you're good at."

It had been the same from the day they met…


Just a bit more at a time. As for the three new pilots, they are:

Nicholas Locarno, Sito Jaxa, and Mitena Haro! And you'll see more of them in coming chapters.