The Sins of the Father (Star Trek)

[FaxModem1]

If the Soviets were already marching on Hawaii? I'm pretty sure they'd keep a fleet near Washington DC.

And how often do we see "the Enterprise is the only ship close enough to defend Earth!" throughout Trek?

Point.

[Swindle1984]

The USS Savik's Dogma orbited Earth peacefully, its captain sipping a mug of hot cocoa as he relaxed in his ready room reading a dog-eared copy of Ulysses. He glanced out the window at the moon as it slowly slid into view, and was about to return to his book when something caught his eye.

There was an odd visual distortion, like something transparent was moving across the stars...

He was just about to slap his comm badge and order a sensor sweep of the area when ten Ascension cruisers decloaked at almost point-blank range and blew his ship away in a single blast.

The USS Rhode Island fared no better, not even managing to gets its shields up before a volley of missiles obliterated it.

In contrast to established Ascension doctrine of orbital bombardment of all potential military targets before landing troops, the Ascension simply launched a volley of drop pods and a wave of landing craft at a particular point in North America before pulling away from the planet; the cruisers had bigger fish to fry. The workers at the Utopia Planitia shipyard scrambled to comply when the Ascension ships informed them they had ten minutes to evacuate before they opened fire on the facilities.

The drop pods slammed into the ground in clusters all around Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, an armored trooper emerging from each one. The landing craft touched down and disgorged something the Federation had not yet encountered; light infantry.

In contrast to the typical Ascension trooper, clad in bulky powered armor, these were more recognizably humanoid, clad in olive-drab full-body uniforms with conventional body armor, fully-enclosed helmets, small backpacks, and smaller rifles than their power armored comrades carried. They were smaller and more numerous than their armor-clad comrades, and they swarmed into Starfleet HQ and the surrounding area.

Starfleet personnel obtained phasers as quickly as possible and fought back, but it was a losing battle; they simply were not prepared for such an assault.

In space, the attack on Utopia Planitia was paused as the USS Langry, summoned by the SOS Earth had broadcast before the Ascension started jamming communications, dropped from warp and fired a volley of quantum torpedoes, which exploded almost harmlessly against the shields of the targeted Ascension cruiser; the Ascension ships returned fire and, despite taking heavy damage, the Langtry escaped back into warp, taking discretion for the better part of valor.

-----------------------------

Sarah Okuda was with her parents, visiting San Francisco so they could see her brother's graduation at Starfleet Academy. After the ceremony, they all toured the campus, then the Headquarters complex. Her brother, Sho, had just suggested taking them to his favorite restaurant when the alarms went off and sonic booms rumbled across the sky.

The next few minutes were a blur as her whole family ran for their lives, the whine of phaser beams contrasting the pop and rattle of automatic weapons fire, explosions shaking the ground beneath them. They eventually took shelter inside an office that looked like it had taken a direct hit from a bomb; huddling beneath a desk, her parents sheltered her with their bodies while Sho pulled debris into place to camouflage their hiding position.

Nobody suggested that Sho, a newly minted ensign, should go out and try to fight off the attackers. His place was right here with his family.

For what seemed like forever, but was probably only about ten minutes, they hid there, listening to the sounds of battle off in the distance. Then they all froze when they heard a clatter in the hallway, followed by oddly birdlike chirps and clicks. Heavy footsteps approached their hiding place, there was a series of clicks and bursts of static, and then someone shoved aside the debris hiding them.

Sarah was face to face with an Ascension light infantryman, pointing his ugly-looking assault rifle right at them from only a couple of feet away. He tensed up when he saw Sho's uniform, but after pausing for a few seconds, he held his finger up to his helmet in a gesture indicating they should remain silent and pulled the debris back into place. There was what sounded like a conversation between two people in that odd chirp-click-hiss language, and then she heard footsteps walk away and then silence.

An alien soldier had discovered their hiding place, warned them to stay quiet, and hid them. For the rest of her life, Sarah would wonder why he had done that.

Several minutes later, the shaken family was startled again when Sho's commbadge chirped and a synthesized voice informed them that the emergency site-to-site transport system was going to evacuate them all shortly. Sarah's mother cried as she hugged both her children, and her father looked relieved as well.

Then everything dissolved into a blue glow and they were suddenly standing on a transporter pad in London, surrounded by other frightened people.

They were safe.

----------------------------------



The Ascension light infantry, able to fit into spaces not intended for their armored brethren, swarmed Starfleet HQ. Their goal, clearly, was to capture or kill as many of Starfleet's highest ranking offices as possible.

Their mission was not especially successful. They did capture a pair of admirals, but that was all; the rest were either elsewhere when the attack had occurred, or had used a site-to-site transport to escape as soon as HQ came under attack, just seconds before the Ascension infantry could activate a transport denial field they had brought with them. Their valuable prisoners were secured and being hustled back to the landing craft when the Federation threw a monkey wrench into their plans.

More specifically, Admiral Kathryn Janeway, aboard the USS Voyager, took off from Golden Gate Park and blew up the landing craft. Ascension intelligence had indicated that the ship was a non-operational museum piece on display, and had thus ignored it. Somewhere, an Ascension officer was cursing and regretting not obeying his first impulse to bomb it from orbit.

Voyager left the atmosphere and ventured into space, keeping the Earth between it and the ten Ascension cruisers attacking Utopia Planitia, and then met up with the fleet of Starfleet vessels that had just emerged from warp.

Outnumbered and outgunned, the Ascension cruisers pulled back; with their transports destroyed, the deployed infantry had no way of leaving the planet and the cruisers had no time to send more transports to retrieve them. The Ascension cruisers cloaked their ships and fled, leaving their infantry behind.

Their ground troops, most of them in and around Starfleet HQ but others on the outskirts of San Francisco, had no chance of escaping Earth, nor could they hold off a Starfleet counterattack indefinitely. Surrender or capture were unthinkable.

So they rescinded their previous orders to cause as little collateral damage to the city as possible and detonated a 150 kiloton tactical nuke in the middle of Starfleet Headquarters.


------------------------------


"All told, it could have been worse, but not by a lot. Starfleet HQ and the Academy's main campus are gone. We managed to evacuate a lot of people thanks to the new procedures we put in place after the Breen attack, but that explosion still killed at least 50,000 people. And we have twice that many still unaccounted for."

Admiral Dornez covered his face with his hands as Admiral Necheyev continued her report to the President in a dull, lifeless monotone.

What a disaster.

"Fortunately," Janeway spoke up, "I was aboard Voyager preparing for the ceremony declaring her a museum ship when the attack occurred. I managed to whip together a crew of cadets from the Academy and destroy the Ascension's transports."

"I don't know that I would call it fortunate," Dornez snapped bitterly. "Stranding their troops here is probably what led the Ascension to suicide bomb San Francisco."

Janeway colored slightly and held her coffee mug up to her face, at least having the good sense to look embarrassed.

"I don't think we can reasonably blame anyone in this room for what happened," the President said wearily. "That's all on the Ascension's hands. If we failed anywhere, it was in not being better prepared. We assumed the Ascension couldn't reach Earth without us having advance warning due to their slow warp drives, but obviously we were mistaken."

"This attack on HQ could be considered a failure," Dornez said. "They intended to decapitate the Federation in one fell swoop, but their raid on the capital building was unsuccessful, since the council and president had been evacuated already, and their attack on the admiralty was similarly unsuccessful, though Admirals Worcester and T'prill did die as a result. This attack tipped their hands to us that they now possess a new class of ships with shields, cloaking devices, and faster warp drives, so we can be prepared for those in the future. And, as much as I regret saying it, the destruction of San Francisco and the deaths of so many people has benefited us; it's galvanized support for the war. Nearly all personnel who left Starfleet at the end of the Dominion War have reenlisted, and there's no shortage of volunteers wanting revenge for San Francisco."

Shaking his head, Dornez continued, "If their attack had been successful, the Ascension would have ended the war right then and there, with the Federation council and admiralty as their hostages. But it failed, and that's paid off for us in the long term. The fact that the Ascension made a high-risk attack like this in the first place is indicative that they're starting to get desperate. The longer the war continues, the more ships we can return into service, until we're on a full-scale war footing like we were against the Dominion; when we reach that point, the Ascension is going to eventually lose, and I think they know that. This was intended to end the war before it reached the point where it was unwinnable for them. We need to push back, and hard."

"I think-"

Whatever the Tellarite councilor had been about to say was interrupted when a man with lieutenant-commander's pips entered the room looking excited.

"Sir! We've just received word that another group of cadets was found at the Academy campus! Someone named Boothby got them all into a basement before the bomb went off."

"Good man!" Dornez said sincerely; he'd always liked the Academy's head groundskeeper, and both the fact that he'd survived and the fact that he'd gotten a handful of cadets out alive were genuinely good news to him.

"It gets better, Admiral! Boothby says he has an Ascension soldier with him, still alive!"

"What?!"


----------------------------

The Ascension soldier had been found unconscious, half-buried under debris at the outskirts of the blast. Lacking a working communicator, Boothby had led the almost three dozen cadets he'd shepherded into a basement on a march away from the explosion's epicenter and the worst of the radiation, picking up other survivors as they went.

Nobody knew how old Boothby actually was, but rumor had it that he was a permanent feature of Starfleet Academy and had always been there; he claimed that at his age, his eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be. If that was true, then his eyes must once have been able to cut diamonds, because he spotted something amongst the rubble as they walked and deviated almost fifty meters from their path into what had once been a collection of buildings.

An arm, clad in dark green, stuck out from under the remains of a habberdashery. Boothby, armed with a rake, stood at the ready as his cadets dug the Ascension trooper out from under the rubble, relieved him of his weapons, and then carried him another kilometer until they encountered a rescue party.

From there, the soldier and his gear were placed under guard and transported to an unknown facility.

"I must protest," the man said as he followed a man with commander's pips into the room. "I should be out there helping people, not in here... good grief, is that what I think it is?"

"Dr. Bashir, your services are needed here. This is our first Ascension prisoner of war, and he's been unconscious for about three hours. The last one we captured had a suicide pill in a false tooth and killed himself. Do your best to keep this one alive."

"... Yes. Yes, of course."

Accompanied by a pair of nurses and an EMH, Julian Bashir went to work.

The soldier had already been stripped of anything immediately identifiable as a weapon, including his rifle, a pistol, several grenades, and a wickedly-sharp khukri knife, but Bashir found another utility knife and a small, single-shot, pistol hidden within his uniform. Other pieces of gear and body armor were carefully removed and place in bins to be examined later, until finally the soldier was down to his actual uniform itself.

"Ok, scans indicate typical humanoid biology, our atmosphere is safe for him to breathe, let's open that suit up and see how bad the damage is."

The uniform itself disassembled like a soft vacuum suit, gloves and boots disengaging, then the uniform itself coming off; the helmet was the trickiest part to remove until they found the hidden latch that made it pop open, face mask splitting in half and to the sides, allowing the helmet to be removed.

The result was a nude man laying on the table, restrained by a force field, and suffering what appeared to be a concussion and a number of deep, nasty bruises.

"Ok, let's see if- ah, yes, there it is."

Bashir reached into the man's mouth with a probe and extracted a small tablet from a hollow molar.

"Cyanide capsule, fast dissolving. Nasty. What kind of people issue suicide pills to all their soldiers?"

"The zealous kind," muttered the EMH as he waved his tricorder around the man's head. "I'm having trouble getting a good reading; his skull's been reinforced with some kind of ceramic mesh."

"Ceramic mesh?"

"Yes. The only reason he hasn't broken all of his major bones is because they're practically unbreakable; they're all denser than usual, and there's a ceramic mesh coating each one, reinforcing it structurally without interfering with the normal life processes of the bone and surrounding tissue. Rather ingenious, really; looking at it, they probably applied it in adulthood using medical nanites. Any force sufficient to actually break his bones would simply pulp the rest of his body."

"Unbreakable bones; now there's a handy feature. Oh, look at this," Bashir exclaimed, peering closer at the readout on the medical scanner. "His musculature is enhanced too; his muscles are denser and more powerful than normal, but they've also been enhanced with... some sort of synthetic myomer. Artificial muscles, made of some sort of electro-chemically activated polymer. This man could arm wrestle an android and win!"

"There we are... he's responding to the cortical stimulator, synaptic pathways are repairing themselves. He's going to have a nasty headache, maybe some fuzzy memory for a day or so, but he's going to be just fine."

"Speaking of synaptic pathways, they're actually healing faster than normal. And look at all these neural connections... Hold on, this all looks familiar. I need to look at something."

Bashir tapped away excitedly at the display, then exclaimed, "I knew it!", prompting the EMH to frown and walk around the biobed to look at the screen.

"Oh, just what we needed," it muttered before returning to treat its patient.

Bashir turned to the Starfleet intelligence officer lurking in the background with a grin, excited at his discovery.

"I need to talk to whoever's in charge, pronto. This is big, this is... really big."

"Admiral Dornez is already on his way."

"Good, good. Because this is going to put that Valakian pilot into a whole new perspective!"

[Eternal_Freedom]

Back with a bang I see.

Hmm...reinforced bones, enhanced muscle tissue, supercharged neural pathways...sounds like Dr. Catherine Halsey has been up to her old tricks. Or, more precisely, the Ascension long ago found another sleeper ship like Khan's/

[Tribble]

Well, the destruction of Utopia Planitia would definitely be a setback for Starfleet, but nowhere near as much as if they had bombarded it right away and killed all the staff. I'm guessing that the nuke was always intended as a last restort?


And is anyone surprised that Janeway kept her personal warship "museum ship" parked just outside of Starfleet HQ?

[Gerald Tarrant]

Back with a bang I see.

Hmm...reinforced bones, enhanced muscle tissue, supercharged neural pathways...sounds like Dr. Catherine Halsey has been up to her old tricks. Or, more precisely, the Ascension long ago found another sleeper ship like Khan's/

I was wondering if maybe it was something like this guy from "The Hunted" but Memory Alpha just says they were "chemically adjusted" so it rings more true of Bourne than of Master Chief.

[Burak Gazan]

It certainly reinforced that maybe starfleet should spend less time studying ancient literature, art, and quantum -multi-spectral-pinwheels, and maybe a tad more on MILITARY HISTORY. Like, the bit about, always leave an enemy SOME avenue of retreat , since without THAT, they might do things that are...unpleasant.



Nice chapter

I would have killed her though
Without mercy
And, spectacularly

[Eternal_Freedom]

I would have killed her though
Without mercy
And, spectacularly

Let me see...Voyager lifts off, but as she's climbing, she takes a volley of missiles, enough to take down the shields and knock out engines enough to make her crash into, oh, Los Angeles

[Burak Gazan]

Let me see...Voyager lifts off, but as she's climbing, she takes a volley of missiles, enough to take down the shields and knock out engines enough to make her crash into, oh, Los Angeles

That works
And, a warp core explosion just for the fail-Cherry on top with frosting

[Tribble]

Well, her attempts at "saving" the situation ended up with a 150 kiloton warhead going off at Starfleet HQ, which conveniently killed off two rivals Admirals in the process. Perfect alibi for her and everything too... I wonder if she'll be up for a promotion?

I still love the fact that everything Janeway does is written in such a way that you could just as easily conclude that this is all due to her scheming (ya I know in-story that's not the case, but it's a lot of fun):

"Fortunately," Janeway spoke up, "I was aboard Voyager preparing for the ceremony declaring her a museum ship when the attack occurred. I managed to whip together a crew of cadets from the Academy and destroy the Ascension's transports."

"I don't know that I would call it fortunate," Dornez snapped bitterly. "Stranding their troops here is probably what led the Ascension to suicide bomb San Francisco."

Janeway colored slightly and held her coffee mug up to her face, at least having the good sense to look embarrassed.

Is she genuinely upset, or struggling not to cackle evilly?

[Burak Gazan]

Those of us who have read and watched Chuck's reviews for years, know full well it's a 50/50 bet, At BEST

[FaxModem1]

See, this is much better writing. Starfleet was caught with their pants down, but they put up a valiant fight. I especially liked the bit about Boothby.

Question is, how did they pull this off? The UFP has sensors that can usually detect cloaks on their borders. Guess we'll have to see what's going on.

[Tribble]

See, this is much better writing. Starfleet was caught with their pants down, but they put up a valiant fight. I especially liked the bit about Boothby.

Question is, how did they pull this off? The UFP has sensors that can usually detect cloaks on their borders. Guess we'll have to see what's going on.

I imagine that the cloaking sensor network was mostly along the Romulan / Klingon borders? The Ascension weren't known to have had cloaks so they might have been able to attack from their own territory without being detected.

[FaxModem1]

See, this is much better writing. Starfleet was caught with their pants down, but they put up a valiant fight. I especially liked the bit about Boothby.

Question is, how did they pull this off? The UFP has sensors that can usually detect cloaks on their borders. Guess we'll have to see what's going on.

I imagine that the cloaking sensor network was mostly along the Romulan / Klingon borders? The Ascension weren't known to have had cloaks so they might have been able to attack from their own territory without being detected.

That seems naive, even for the UFP, as then either nation could have simply gone around and attacked from the flank. I doubt the Klingons and the Romulans were too dumb to never attempt it.

[Tribble]

See, this is much better writing. Starfleet was caught with their pants down, but they put up a valiant fight. I especially liked the bit about Boothby.

Question is, how did they pull this off? The UFP has sensors that can usually detect cloaks on their borders. Guess we'll have to see what's going on.

I imagine that the cloaking sensor network was mostly along the Romulan / Klingon borders? The Ascension weren't known to have had cloaks so they might have been able to attack from their own territory without being detected.

That seems naive, even for the UFP, as then either nation could have simply gone around and attacked from the flank. I doubt the Klingons and the Romulans were too dumb to never attempt it.

This is the Federation we are talking about though. And even if the Feds have a sensor net around most of their borders there have been plenty of instances where cloaked ships have managed to make their way into Federation Space without being detected. While it's possible to detect cloaked ships it's far from a guarantee. How many times has the E-D, only detect a cloaked ship when its practically right on top of them? They weren't even able to detect the 20+ year old obsolete BoP in Generations until it decloaked and opened fire.

[FaxModem1]

TORETH: In order to reach Draken, we will have to travel through Federation space for nearly twenty hours.
TROI: That is not a problem.
TORETH: Contrary to the propaganda that your superiors would have us believe, Starfleet is neither weak nor foolish. The chances of us reaching Draken undetected are not good.
TROI: We will be cloaked.
TORETH: The cloaking device does not always make us invulnerable, and you would know that if you had spent any time at all in the field. The Federation has littered it's borders with subspace listening posts, with gravitic sensors. They may even have a tachyon detection grid in operation, in which case they will know that we're there. If we are discovered in Federation territory, it will be interpreted as an act of war.
TROI: The Tal Shiar has obtained access codes for the sensor nets. I will provide them if necessary.
TORETH: That will be no guarantee that we will escape undetected.
TROI: Your cowardice does not befit a Romulan soldier.

The Federation has a reputation for being too soft, but anyone who knows them, knows that doing so is a bad idea. Generations also wasn't in Federation space.

[Tribble]

TORETH: In order to reach Draken, we will have to travel through Federation space for nearly twenty hours.
TROI: That is not a problem.
TORETH: Contrary to the propaganda that your superiors would have us believe, Starfleet is neither weak nor foolish. The chances of us reaching Draken undetected are not good.
TROI: We will be cloaked.
TORETH: The cloaking device does not always make us invulnerable, and you would know that if you had spent any time at all in the field. The Federation has littered it's borders with subspace listening posts, with gravitic sensors. They may even have a tachyon detection grid in operation, in which case they will know that we're there. If we are discovered in Federation territory, it will be interpreted as an act of war.
TROI: The Tal Shiar has obtained access codes for the sensor nets. I will provide them if necessary.
TORETH: That will be no guarantee that we will escape undetected.
TROI: Your cowardice does not befit a Romulan soldier.

The Federation has a reputation for being too soft, but anyone who knows them, knows that doing so is a bad idea. Generations also wasn't in Federation space.

That hasn't stopped the Romulans and others from operating in the Neutral Zone and/or violating Federation space on other occasions. Toreth was rightly concerned that the cloak was not foolproof and if they were detected it would be treated as an act of war. She did not state that it was impossible. The Ascension are already at war and determined it was worth the risk, and IMO it's perfectly plausible that on this occasion they succeeded.

It's also the opinion of a single Romulan officer, in most episodes what usually happens is that the cloaked ship manages to get within weapons range of the Fed ship before sometimes being spotted (whether it's in Fed territory or not), even if they Feds knew that they are facing someone with cloaking tech. The only instance I can think of off the top of my head where the Feds were able to spot a cloak pretty easily (without other factors such as engine overload in "Tin Man" or sabotage in the episode you quoted) was when they were dealing with a century-old Klingon warship.

As for Generations, it's a top of the line Federation flagship going up against a 20+ year old defective BoP, and the E-D crew knew the BoP was in the vicinity. Also, while their tech no doubt improved over the years IIRC none of the outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone detected the Borg Ship until it attacked, to the point where they weren't even able to send off any info about their attackers. And the Borg aren't exactly known for being "stealthy". I'm not exactly in awe of federation sensor tech even though it is apparently better than their neighbours.

[FaxModem1]

Yes, ships don't seem able to detect them, but stations and system wide sensors seem able to. Probably more resources available at a dedicated station and/or planetary defenses.

[Tribble]

Yes, ships don't seem able to detect them, but stations and system wide sensors seem able to. Probably more resources available at a dedicated station and/or planetary defenses.

Well again, it was pointed out that trying to get through Fed borders without being spotted was risky, not impossible. Big difference. Besides which, didn't the Ascension blow up a Federation Starbase earlier? And attacked other starbases / outposts? That could have easily opened a hole in whatever sensor network the Feds had big enough for cloaked ships to pass through.

And again, I'm not so convinced of Federation sensor infallibility given that their dedicated outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone failed to spot a Borg ship in the area until they were attacked and destroyed, though their tech / density of their network would no doubt have improved since then.

With regards to stations DS9 was usually able to spot cloaked ships when they were close enough (aka weapons ranger) though it was still pretty spotty... in the Defiant's first appearance it was even able to get practically next to the shield perimeter before being picked up.

[FaxModem1]

Well, that was when the Romulans had been quiet for decades, and the UFP was in a state of peace, sort of busy with other stuff, and quite full of themselves and thinking they could handle anything. We do see them being suspicious of tachyon(signs of a cloaking device) in later episodes, though.

I'm willing to buy that the Ascension blew a big enough hole in the sensor net due to all of their attacks, though.

[Tribble]

Well, that was when the Romulans had been quiet for decades, and the UFP was in a state of peace, sort of busy with other stuff, and quite full of themselves and thinking they could handle anything. We do see them being suspicious of tachyon(signs of a cloaking device) in later episodes, though.

Even so, the Borg are hardly known for being "stealthy," the ship must have been of some size as it scooped up the outposts outright, and given their track record the Borg probably even declared their intentions before attacking... and the series of outposts dedicated to detecting ships still failed the spot check each time, to the point that they were unable to even name their attacker let alone get a description off. It's a pretty impressive display of failure even accounting for your points.

At any rate I'm not aware of any in-canon evidence to suggest that Federation sensors are foolproof to the point that cloaked vessels have zero chance of success, at worst the odds are "not good" if we were to take the Romulan officer's words at face value. YMMV on what "not good" meant in that context, IMO even 50/50 odds would be "not good" when the outcome of failure is a potential war, especially when said Romulan officer had no idea what the purpose of the mission was when she made the comment, and had every reason to distrust Troi (and the Tal Shiar in general).

I'm willing to buy that the Ascension blew a big enough hole in the sensor net due to all of their attacks, though.

IMO its a combination of "Fed sensors are not 100% fool proof" + part of said network being knocked out.

[Swindle1984]

Word of God, here: It's a combination of multiple factors.

1) The Federation would, naturally, concentrate their ability to detect cloaked vessels along the border with nations known to possess cloaking devices, and not prioritize deploying expensive installations along the borders of nations that lack them.

2) The Federation has gotten lax after beating the Dominion, Cardassians, etc. and has repeatedly underestimated their enemy; in fact, if they just buckled down and got serious, the Ascension wouldn't stand much a chance against them, at least not in a prolonged conflict. This was touched on in the motivations for the Ascension's attack on Earth: they know that once the Federation's "sleeping giant" awakes, they're going to inevitably lose and want to end the war ASAP.

3) The Federation's sensor grid was never infallible to begin with and has repeatedly been bypassed by multiple enemies.

4) The Ascension did blow up several starbases, which I imagine would be a part of that sensor grid.

[Swindle1984]

Admiral Dornez stood beside a man wearing commander's pips, officially a member of Starfleet Intelligence; unofficially, his rank as a commander was simply a convenience that allowed him to order around Starfleet personnel, and his real job was working for Section 31. Dornez was one of the few people in on that little secret, but he never acknowledged it on the few instances he encountered the man.

"Doctor Bashir is still examining the prisoner, so I thought I'd show you what we took off of him first."

"All right."

"First, weapons. His rifle is very similar to the one we obtained previously, but in what used to called a 'bullpup' configuration."

"Bullpup?" Dornez asked, puzzled; it wasn't a term he'd ever heard.

"It refers to a rifle with the primary operating mechanism and ammunition magazine located behind the trigger, resulting in a more compact weapon while still allowing for a longer barrel that provides superior range and accuracy compared to a conventional rifle with a shortened barrel. The origin of the term 'bullpup' is... lost to time, I suppose."

"I see."

"The bullpup design has the advantages of being more compact and having a longer barrel than a similarly-sized conventional rifle, but it does have disadvantages: the magazine placement, for example, can make reloading awkward, and the internal components can be difficult to reach if they need cleaning or replacement. This rifle seems to have solved the latter issue by disassembling into modular components. We also surmise that the other rifle we obtained had a more conventional placement of the magazine and firing mechanism because the bulky powered armor worn by Ascension troopers would make reloading a bullpup rifle more difficult. Despite the different configurations, the two rifles have a 60% parts commonality, primarily in the trigger group and bolt system. The operating mechanism is very similar; a soldier familiar with one rifle would be able to use and maintain the other with little difficulty. This rifle also uses different ammunition; the ammunition itself is slightly smaller, with less propellant, and although the bullet is the same 6.5mm design, it's slightly lighter. I theorize this is to make recoil more manageable for a soldier without powered armor, but the ammunition used is still powerful enough that you and I would consider recoil to be excessive; clearly the Ascension are stronger than us."

"Clearly. Is this the same sight as on the other rifle?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, it's also damaged, but we have bigger pieces this time and can confirm our theories about its operation. You can look through it, like so, and see a targeting reticle projected wherever you're aiming, and it can also transmit an image of whatever you're aiming at to the user's helmet, allowing the gun to be fired around corners or over barriers without exposing the user to return fire."

"Handy feature. Maybe we should incorporate that into our phasers."

"It would involve wearing an eye piece of some sort, but it would be a handy feature. Oh, and we've confirmed that the magazine does indeed hold 50 rounds of ammunition. His sidearm takes a different approach; while the rifle seems focused on penetrating armor or barriers someone might hide behind, the pistol is intended to do as much damage as possible to soft tissue and bone, but would perform poorly against most barriers or armor. It holds 12 rounds of ammunition, plus one in the chamber, uses telescoped ammunition with polymer cases instead of caseless ammunition, and fires a heavy 12mm bullet. We found magazines loaded with two types of ammunition; the first is a nylon-jacketed osmium-iridium bullet designed to fragment upon impact, producing devastating wounds. The other is a nylon-jacketed steel bullet that is hollow and has been pre-scored on the inside to fragment more evenly; there's a tiny firing pin inside which slams forward upon impact and detonates a small tetryl explosive charge, and the rest of the bullet is filled with white phosphorous. The result is an explosive bullet that detonates inside the torso, causing horrific wounds. It's also incendiary, and we have reports of several small fires started by these projectiles in San Francisco; nothing serious, but if these bullets struck a hydrogen cell or plasma coil it could detonate them. Similar projectiles were used on Earth in the 20th and 21st century, and were capable of igniting fuel tanks loaded with gasoline quite easily."

"Not much use against modern technology, but against personnel without body armor, quite nasty. I assume this would cause minimal damage to the body armor we're looking at issuing to our people?"

"Oh, absolutely. These bullets don't get very good penetration; you could hide behind a wooden table and be perfectly safe from them."

"All right. I see he brought a couple of knives along; what's this pistol here?"

"It's a single-shot holdout pistol, probably intended as a last resort. It's loaded with a single 12mm round, but it's also capable of firing an assortment of signal flares we found in the same pouch. It's likely a multi-purpose signal and survival tool that doubles as a weapon. Or maybe a suicide gun; the Ascension seem fond of killing themselves to avoid capture."

"Yes, well, it didn't work so well this time," Dornez commented grimly. "And these here, they're grenades?"

"Yes, sir. These two are identical to what we surmised from the evidence at the site of other attacks; octonitrocubane with small amounts of heptanitrocubane for the explosive, with about 3,000 tungsten ball bearings providing shrapnel. These three smaller grenades are the same basic concept, but about the size of a golf ball; less powerful, fewer projectiles, but smaller and lighter, so you can carry three of these for the same weight as a single full-sized grenade. There's also a pair of smoke grenades, they project an aerosol that blocks visibility and infrared scanners, not so much for tricorder scans. This one seems to be an incendiary grenade, loaded with what they used to call Thermate TH3; a fairly standard incendiary mixture, common to many worlds. We quit using it some time in the 22nd century."

"Let's look at his body suit."

"Yes, sir. The suit is fully enclosed, and a very ingenius design, actually. The boots and gloves attach just like on a space suit, and the collar attaches to the helmet, forming a fully enclosed suit. The materials used are a blend of artificial fibers, similar to Kevlar, Gore-Tex, and graphene, and the fibers used in our uniforms; it's a one-way membrane that allows sweat to wick away from the wearer, but keeps chemical weapons and biological material and fluids from getting in. Honestly, we should think of adopting this design for ourselves, it's incredibly clever. The enclosed suit would even protect the wearer from a vacuum for a short period."

"How short a period?"

"A minute or two? The breathable membrane would depressurize the suit eventually, but if someone wearing one of these suits was in a ship and got exposed to vacuum, he'd be protected long enough to get to a safe area. It's obviously not intended to double as a space suit, but it would help. It's also fireproof and provides ballistic protection; not a lot, but some. Probably enough to stop shrapnel. The body armor fits over it, covering most of the torso, as well as the upper arms and thighs, and consists of artificial fibers, ceramic, and titanium. We have reports that these troops could shrug off a direct hit from a kill setting, but multiple phaser hits or higher settings took them down. It's too bad we couldn't recover the body of one that got shot; I'd love to study how the armor was affected. I don't want to damage the only example we have by shooting it."

"The helmet," he continued, lifting it to show the admiral, "is fully-enclosed and features a cooling system and air filtration system, with a very small oxygen supply, only enough for a couple of minutes. Exposed to an environment with chemical or biological weapons or just nasty air, it filters everything out and provides clean air; in an environment with an oxygen shortage it provides supplemental oxygen to the wear, and even in a vacuum it would give the wearer enough time to get somewhere safe. There's a built-in comm link, infrared-enhanced vision that would enable them to see in the dark, auditory enhancement so they can hear things our ears aren't sensitive enough to pick up and on a wider range of frequencies, and a few other features we haven't worked out yet. We haven't studied the helmet too closely because of what happened with the PADD."

"The PADD?"

"Yes. Previously, we'd seen the Ascension use PADD's manufactured by the Ferengi, but this one appears to be made by the Ascension themselves. It has wireless information transfer capability like ours, but it also has a number of sockets for plugging in cables."

"Bulky. Not as heavy as it looks though."

"Indeed. It seems to be overbuilt specifically to survive hostile environments; logical, for something carried by a soldier. The outer layer is a rubberized material to protect it from impacts, and the display is both slightly flexible and self-healing to keep it from cracking. The internals are bulkier than ours, they don't seem to have quite mastered miniaturizing electronic components as well as we have, but this PADD holds nearly five times as much data as one of ours."

"You're joking."

"I'm not," he said, taking the PADD from Dornez and waving it for emphasis. "It's bulkier than our PADD's, but they seem to be better at data storage than we are, both in terms of hardware and software, especially in terms of data compression. Speaking of software, it was utterly incompatible with anything we've encountered before. We couldn't even read the language displayed on the screen when we turned it on. We think it's based on a ternary system, but it was heavily encrypted. Unfortunately, when we tried to access it, we were unable to break the encryption and the PADD erased itself and overwrote its system with random gibberish so we couldn't recover any of the data. Then it ignited a small thermite charge inside the case and melted the hardware. This thing is a brick."

"You didn't notice an incendiary device inside it?"

"Oh no, we did. But we didn't do anything about it because it was designed to prevent someone from opening up the PADD and tampering with its internal components; we should have guessed it would activate in the event of any tampering. That's why we haven't done much with the helmet; we don't want the software or hardware destroying itself until we have a better idea of what we're doing."

"Good thinking," Dornez nodded.

"The rest of the soldier's gear seems to consist of an old-fashioned magnetic compass, illuminated with radioactive tritium, the two knives you see here, a canteen that rides on his back and plugs into the helmet so the wearer can take a drink at any time; that holds a little over 3 liters, by the way. A first aid kit, rather primitive by our standards; things like bandages, a powdered blood clotting agent, and the like. And a handful of ration bars and a self-heating drink pouch that contains some sort of soup. We can't read the text they're labeled with; not yet. But the translator is hard at work, and since we know what they contain, that gives us something to work with on guessing what the text says."

"Anything else?"

"No, that's it."

"Fine. Let's see the prisoner then."

-------------------------

"So you can see here," Bashir said, pointing to the display, "how his bones and musculature have been reinforced. The artificial muscle enhancing his real muscle actually increases support for the skeletal system; the bones may be the next best thing to unbreakable, but if he lifted the sheer amount of weight his muscles can lift, it wouldn't do his joints any favors. The artificial musculature adds more support, allowing him to use his full strength without damaging his own body in the process. If he wanted to, he could lift you, me, the commander here, and this table with one hand and hold us out at arm's length as long as he wanted without strain or fatigue."

"So he's a super-soldier."

"Indeed," Bashir said, agreeing with the admiral. "His eyesight is far better than ours, and he can see better in the dark too; not in color, but where we would only see vague silhouettes he would be able to see actual detail. His hearing is better, his sense of smell is slightly more sensitive, but not by much, and his immune system is simply insane. I know of only a handful of diseases that should even affect him; the Numerian Plague would cause total organ failure in you or I, but to him it'd barely give him the sniffles before his autoimmune system wiped it out."

"So we can't just wipe out the Ascension with a virus then."

Bashir stared at Admiral Dornez for a long moment, then said, "No, we couldn't. I don't believe we could engineer one either, if that was an option."

"Relax, doctor. I'm just thinking out loud; biological weapons aren't even a consideration."

"Mmm. Anyway, his lung capacity is greater than ours, and the oxygen exchange is more efficient; he could climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. His heart is more efficient, and so is his metabolism; a body like his should take a lot of calories to fuel, but he gets more nutrition out of his food than we do. His liver and kidneys are also more efficient, and there appears to be a small, artificial addition to each that improves their filtration qualities; he's far more resistant to toxins than we are too."

"And," he continued, switching images on the display again, "he should be very intelligent. Cranial capacity is slightly larger, and the makeup of his brain suggests someone who is highly intelligent."

"How intelligent?"

"I couldn't even begin to guess, but I have one of the highest IQ's of any human in Starfleet and he should at least be a match for me. That's, actually... what led me to my next point. When I scanned his brain, which was a tad difficult because of the ceramic reinforcing his skull, I noticed that it all looked very familiar, and that's when I realized it was because his brain structure is very similar to mine."

Dornez fixed Bashir with a steady look, his eyes narrowing, and slowly commented, "Doctor, your intelligence and hand-eye coordination are the result of illegal genetic engineering. Are you saying...?"

Taking a deep breath, Bashir nodded. "His biological enhancements are genetically engineered. In fact, when I checked our database to see if there records of similar engineering, I found an almost identical match."

Bashir tapped the display, bringing up additional information, and Dornez felt the color drain from his face and a curious sensation, like a sudden fall, fluttered in his gut.

"Oh shit."

Smiling grimly, Bashir nodded his agreement with that assessment.

"He's human. More specifically, he has nearly all the same genetic markers as the Augments of the late 20th, early 21st century. This man," he said, gesturing to the man lying on the biobed nearby, "is a descendant of the same people who brought us Khan Noonien Singh and Alexander Rheinhardt. The differences in genetic structure can be accounted for by some minor genetic tweaking since then, or perhaps just the passage of several centuries. And, of course, the artificial augmentation is new. But this does explain how the Valakian pilot we captured had his own genetic structure altered to correct the genetic defect that was killing them, as well as enhancing their physiology slightly. Not to the extent of this man, but still an improvement."

Dornez could feel his brain struggling to cope with all the implications this revelation brought with it. While he processed this new information, his Section 31 compatriot spoke up, asking, "So is the Ascension made of Augments, or did the Ascension just get their hands on the genetic material for them and produce their own supersoldiers? It seems to me that a man this strong and durable wouldn't really need powered armor like the majority of the Ascension we've seen."

"Good questioned," Bashir quipped. "Unfortunately, it's above my pay grade. I'm just a doctor; you'll have to ask him if you want any answers."

Dornez walked over to look at the man, covered in a blanket and restrained by a forcefield, and looked closely. Tall, powerfully muscled, his pale skin and close-cropped sandy-brown hair gave him a Nordic appearance, though he supposed the pale skin could just be from habitually wearing a full-body suit.

"How long until he regains consciousness?"

"Oh, er, he's been conscious for well over an hour. Almost immediately after we finished treating his concussion, in fact. He's very good at pretending though; if I wasn't monitoring his brain activity, I'd have never known."

Dornez looked alarmed for a moment, then jumped when the man's eyes snapped open, pupils constricting to adjust to the light level in the room immediately, and fixed him with a cold, steel-gray glare.

"Well then. What's your name, soldier?"

The man stared in silence.

"You've been listening to our conversation, so you know a lot of what we know. Who is the Ascension? Are they Augments, like you, or are you a client race like the Valakians? How did your people end up in Ascension space?"

Nothing.

"At least tell me your name. Interstellar law requires a prisoner of war to identify himself."

The man gave Dornez one last, contemptuous, glare, looked around the room, and then closed his eyes again.

"Well, no matter," said the man in a commander's uniform with a thin smile. "He'll talk eventually."

"Thank you, doctor. You've done fine work. I don't have to tell you that everything you've seen and done here today is classified?"

"Of course not," Bashir said, slightly nervous.

"Good. If we need your services again, we'll let you know. For now, I believe there are people who need your help."

"Glad to be of service, admiral. You know where to find me."

---------------------------------------

"Evasive maneuver Picard Gamma!"

The Enterprise banked down and to the left, narrowly avoiding a volley of missiles, but still failing to shake the Ascension fighters swarming them. Nearby, another starship exploded, but he had no idea which one.

His fleet had received more reinforcements from across the sector, and then the second fleet, the one that had responded to the attack on Earth, had also arrived just in the nick of time: the massive Ascension fleet that had gathered at the secret starbase he'd raided had launched its counterattack. This time the target seemed to be Starfleet itself, and not a starbase or space station, because they'd come right after Picard.

The Ascension had ships that could punch above their weight due to the sheer number of missiles they fired, and now they heavily outnumbered the Federation ships present in the system. It wasn't the most one-sided battle since Wolf 359, but it was certainly one of the grimmest, including the various engagements of the Dominion War.

The Enterprise's shields flared again as several more bomb-pumped x-ray lasers slashed at his ship. The only saving grace for the Federation was their superior maneuverability and their shields; while Ascension ships just had to suffer damage to their armor and the magnetic field and 'plasma window' they used to disperse the effects of phaser and torpedo fire somewhat, a Federation ship that took too much damage could fall back for a while and let their shields recover before entering the fray again. The Ascension fleet also seemed to lack any of the new ships they'd attacked Earth with, now officially known as Warlocks, so that was another saving grace.

Still, he thought grimly, the battle wasn't going especially well. Too few ships had point defense systems, and the Ascension were largely concentrating their fire on the biggest and most powerful ships; given the amount of firepower they could unleash, that meant the biggest and most powerful starships he had weren't long for the world, and they were being destroyed or crippled one by one.

"All ships, continue to close! We've got to get close enough that they don't dare use their missiles!"

The fleet charged into the fray, closing to what was effectively knife range in hopes of negating the Ascension's biggest advantage in space combat, and the killing and dying began in earnest.

------------------------

Riker and Deanna looked up as the door to their cell snapped open and a pair of armored troopers leveled their weapons at them.

"YOU WILL COME WITH US IMMEDIATELY."

"Where?"

"MOVE NOW."

"I'm not going anywhere until I know where and why. I'm done play-"

"Will!"

It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't actually dying, it just felt like it; the touch of the shock baton that had extended from the soldier's arm had felt like getting punched and set on fire at the same time. He could breathe and look around, but that was about all; his control over his body was gone.

An Ascension soldier lifted him up with one hand like he was a doll and rumbled, "YOUR COMPLIANCE IS NOT A REQUIREMENT."

By the time they reached the security station, Riker could move again and was allowed to walk on his own, though the armored juggernaut kept one massive hand on his shoulder to steady him as he wobbled on shaky legs that didn't want to cooperate. As they passed through the security station, the armored troopers there seemed on high alert, weapon stations manned and every soldier holding his rifle at the ready, while red lights and a quiet alarm tone set a tense atmosphere.

Clearly something was happening, but Riker didn't know what. They reached the turbolift, still manned by a soldier standing at attention with his rifle at the low-ready, and the lift moved so quickly that Riker and Deanna almost lost their footing, then halted just as quickly. They were hustled down a short corridor to another turbolift, the doors flanked by a pair of guards and a third inside the lift itself, went on an equally abrupt journey, exited, and passed through another security station, this time with twice as many weapon emplacements and all aimed at the turbolift. Passing through an airlock with thick doors, they entered what Riker realized must be the bridge.

It was his first time getting a good look at the bridge of an Ascension ship; the only other time he'd seen one was on the viewscreen, and he'd barely been able to see anything because of the extreme closeup on the ship's captain in his black armor.

He'd expected something dimly lit and brooding, like a Klingon ship, but more... industrial, in appearance. He was half right. The bridge was brightly lit and everything was painted either bright white or a battleship grey color. The bridge was cramped, with just enough space to move around to all the different stations. Each station had consoles that looked to be armored, and the seats the crewmen sat in were heavily reinforced and had crash frames and harnesses built in. None of the crew had the heavy powered armor of the soldiers escorting him and Deanna, but each wore a black spacesuit with armor and padding, and except for the pair of soldiers flanking the only entrance to the bridge, every member of the bridge crew was secure in his seat and console almost like a separate capsule; it wouldn't have surprised him to discover that each bridge station actually doubled as an escape pod or life support capsule. Everything the Ascension made seemed to be overbuilt and as tough as possible, so that certainly seemed plausible. He also noted that every crew member had a sidearm of some sort in a hip, thigh, or shoulder holster; if every member of the crew was armed at all times, it just made escape that much harder. The only sounds were a faint whisper of airflow from vents in the ceiling and the quiet chirp-hiss-click of crewmen talking to each other.

"YOU WILL STAND HERE. YOU WILL NOT MOVE, AND YOU WILL NOT SPEAK. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL BE PUNISHED SEVERELY."

"Sure, I understand," Riker said, shuffling to stand where indicated.

"YOU WILL NOT SPEAK." The baton extended again and crackled once menacingly. This time, Riker simply nodded his understanding and the Ascension soldier leaned back, retracting the baton in apparent satisfaction. Deanna remained silent and kept her eyes downcast, but Riker noticed her looking surreptitiously around the bridge.

Riker looked over the captain's shoulder, difficult to do with the heavy crash frame the man was nestled in, and looked at the small display in front of him; there was no main viewscreen like on a Federation vessel. His eyebrows shot up in surprise as he saw a Galaxy-class starship, flanked by a pair of Defiant-class ships, on the screen. Then the display changed to reveal the bridge of the Galaxy-class ship.

"I'm Captain Osmond Steele of the Federation starship Andromeda. Your transport ship is outnumbered and outgunned; surrender immediately."

"WE PREFER DEATH TO SURRENDER. YOU WILL ALSO NOTE THAT WE ARE TRANSPORTING PRISONERS OF WAR. WE WILL NOT SURRENDER AND WE WILL NOT ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE CAPTURED. STAND DOWN AND ALLOW US TO PROCEED ON COURSE OR WE WILL EXECUTE THE PRISONERS AND FIGHT TO THE DEATH."

"He's-"

Deanna dropped like a puppet with its strings cut as a shock baton was pressed to the small of her back, and the soldier stunning her kept her from falling to the deck with one hand. Riker tensed up, but felt the tip of another baton pressing against him, ready to discharge, and simply grit his teeth in anger. There was literally nothing he could do to fight back against the armored giants.

On the small screen, Captain Steele considered for a moment, discussing the situation with his officers while the audio was muted. Finally, after about a minute of obviously heated discussion, Steele turned to the viewscreen again, glaring at it with obvious hatred.

"We'll let you go... this time. But y-"

"A WISE DECISION."

The comm channel was cut and Riker and Deanna were hustled from the bridge again and led back to their cells.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Are you?"

"I'm fine. It hurts like hell when they zap you, but only for a moment."

"He was bluffing. The Ascension captain."

"Of course he was. We're the only prisoners on the whole ship."

"No; he was bluffing about killing us. They have no intent to harm us, at least not for now. I'm not sure if it's because of their orders or simply because they don't believe in harming prisoners, but while they were perfectly willing to fight to the death and destroy themselves, they would not have killed us."

"They sure have a funny way of 'not harming' us," he commented dryly, touching the spot where he'd been stunned. It felt a little tender there, like a mild sunburn, but there didn't seem to be any other damage.

"You know what I mean."

"So why us? Why are we so important?"

"I'm not sure why they want me along, but you're the captain of a Federation starship, and you have a long, distinguished service record. You're also probably the highest ranking Starfleet officer they've captured so far. If they really want us to help them establish a line of dialogue with the Federation and negotiate for peace, then we're the logical choice."

Grimacing, Riker slumped onto the bed and leaned his head against the wall. How the hell long was this trip going to take, anyway?

Two days later, he found out.

[cadbrowser]

I must say that I am rather enjoying this bit of ST Fan Fic. I was pretty sad to get to your last installment! I am looking forward for more.

Just a few critiques if I may...

Some of the enemy's weapon's information was a bit too wordy in my opinion, given the general lack of, what I like to call, "Charles Dickens" descriptions anywhere else for anything else. It just seemed uncharacteristic based on the previous writing style when you first started out. Almost as if you were wanting to just get something written for the sake of it. You went into techno-speak.

I did find it comical that most of the features of their weapons or armor suites ended with ~"...we should look to incorporate that." You are really dining on the sub-context that purveys these forums regarding some of the tactical and impractical things that the "idiots" at Starfleet utilize when militarizing "Exploration" personnel. It's like they have no idea how WWIII was fought. It assumes all colonies were built without any type of conflict or need for "ground troops" and that anywhere there may have been indigenous intelligent lifeforms received them with open arms. Sorry, that last bit was not directed at you but at the writers of the ST World in general.

I would've like to have heard more about Janeway's escape in it's own little arc/sub-chapter or whatever we call these posts. Given some of the contempt here for her and your disinterest in playing with that to either confirm/embellish it (to affirm that she should be loathed) or shed a different light to try to win some support for her back, I think you made the mistake ignoring her development for the most part.

I thought the idea of having Voyager being commemorated as a museum piece was novel and most appropriate.

Bringing in the Super Solder Sleeper aspect is definitely welcomed. I could see this story making it as one that JJ brings into his fold.

So far, awesome work, keep it up!

[Highlord Laan]

Comments and critiques are welcome.

At this point, all I'm thinking is these "Ascension" shitbeards need a boot busted off in their ass, the Federation admiralty (as usual) needs to be stripped of rank and fired en mass, preferably out of a cannon and into the sun, and Picard is a Shakespere-spouting blowhard blinded by all the insufferable idealism reflecting off his bare pate.

In short, my general view of the Federation, it's so-called "officers" and their general response to hostilities.

[Burak Gazan]

In all fairness, Jean Luck Pickard... always WAS. Remember, both him, AND Riker were blowing gas about how combat had no use to a 'Starfleet Officer'. THESE are the guys who got better than half of Starfleet carbonized by the Dominion and Cardies. Having an opponent who's halfway competent in combat kick their asses is no surprise. And the fact they seem to ignore 90% of human history, including all of the bits about warfare, is just more TNG-Retard dialed up to 12 - Again