Chapter Sixty (Kark)

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.272

I've seen a couple of Space Force Fleet Actions, two in real time in real life, and I've never seen this much metal scattered around a system. It isn't that the Precursors are more powerful, some of their tech is laughably ancient, it's just there's so many of them and the big ones are just so tough. Just because it is ancient does not mean it is useless. Throwing a rock is ancient yet is not a C+ Cannon just throwing a large rock at really high speeds?

It's become common knowledge that boarding parties are the way to go when it comes to the Goliaths and the new ones that have shown up, the Kaiju class. It's either try to pound something the size of a subcontinent into the dirt or board them and blow the Strategic Intelligence Housing.

Space Force has tried to take a few "alive" but they always have charges to blow out the AI core. Sometimes they'll completely suicide and your casualties include the entire boarding force as well as any nearby vessels.

Contrary to suggestions you can't just "disable the engines and let it drift into the sun" because each of the Battlewagon class or higher will control the smaller ones and seek to rebuild the engines and get it running again. Saw a Jotun settle on the wreck of a Goliath that Space Force had pounded until you could see through it, and jump into Hellspace with it despite disabled engines and an estimated destroyed Hellcore.

Apparently there's negotiations with the rulers of the Eye of Terror Systems to let them call for a new Black Crusade since they are the masters of Hellspace in the Confederacy. Some people aren't too sure about it since the last time these guys went full on Black Crusade was after the Mantids glassed TerraSol and while I feel nervousness at such a prospect, these may truly be bordering upon desperate times.

Some guys name Gulkek's, who the Terran Navy saved back when I was still checking out that Precursor world, are allowing Starfleet to put a shipyard and full starbase in their system. The race is eagerly petitioning to be allowed to join Starfleet and the Federation as members of the Confederacy.

One of the things that us Federation LARPers dislike about the Confederacy is there's no Prime Directive. We're not supposed to interfere in unprogessed xenospecies, but the Confederacy has no such restrictions and disrupts those xenospecies natural progression.

We've had to set aside our kneejerk dislike for the Confederacy offering citizenship or freeing worlds that the Terran Navy or Space Force defends. There's the whole "Are these species ready for it?" questions that comes in with the Prime Directive. It's one of the reasons we're an ally organization but not a full member of the Confederacy despite our members having the ability to become Confederacy citizenry.

But what we've seen. I mean, the things we've seen. My crew and I shall never forget.

Some of the crew doesn't like that I'm "gunrunning" in their eyes, running the nano-forge to arm some of these species, but my Redshirts all agree with it. Even my Spock agrees with it.

There's genocide going on out here.

That word. It doesn't really describe what's going on out here. Extermination is closer but still lacks the sheer scale of what is happening.

We've been out here only a little over a month, and I think it's getting to my crew.

I might have to do another LFG.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.279

Five days. That's all it's been. Five days. It feels like forever. McCoy put me under. I was standing in the Ready Room screaming at a crew that wasn't there. I slept for two days straight.

We stopped them.

I ran the cloning tanks for the Respawn Pods dry, ran the nano-forge and the creation engines to slush, dropping Redshirts on the Kaiju until a boarding party finally got the Strategic Intelligence Housing and blew it with a proton torpedo head they'd packed the whole way.

You can't use transporters.

That should have been obvious, and I wasted the first two 'launches' of Redshirts.

The transporter uses a digital signal to move and then recreate a being.

Of course the Precursors would have digital signal "noise" removers and capture cards.

After we killed the brain we sought out where the Kaiju was storing the signals for our Redshirts.

I'm glad we did. Imagine being stuck in a buffer, forever, where someone keeps loading you into a sadistic Cardassian torture chamber to rip you apart and examine you, with your memories being updated in the buffer while you're being tortured. Meanwhile, your SUDS won't go off because you're "only" stuck in a buffer.

Still, five days we managed to sweep the system. We kept the Kaiju from making any planetary landings or attacks. I shot the proton torpedo nano-forges into slush, even used transphasic torpedos during the fight. I had possessed doubt about allowing weapons powerful enough to scrap a Borg cube, which are prohibited from most Ladder rank fights, from being used in IRLZones.

The Precursor Kaiju would not have hesitated.

Have reconfigured all shuttles into assault shuttles.

19th Guard (Old Metal) came thundering into the system with a hyperspace rumble that you could feel in your chest. It's an astonishing sight to see all that metal exit hyperspace a division at a time, already cleared for action and at red alert. Hearing space roar with the old Soviet Anthem till the stellar body's stellar wind chimes to it is something not many experience.

Will be granting the crew eight days leave on the 19th Guard's recreation ship in rotations. I expect to be back in action in 14 days.

On a personal note, I wonder if there are any catgirls that will be aboard the recreation ship that might like a good yiffing.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.279

Some of my fellow Federation Starfleet officers questioned my decision to go with an OldTrek class vessel. The newer ones all "look" impressive, where OldTrek is designed very 'sturdily' if you are being polite. Some of the NewTrek stuff can look good because of hull integrity fields help hold the ship together during evasive maneuvers as well as during combat. With non-canon designs already being approved, I had added Enterprise class hull integrity fields to the Dakota as backup and used NewTrek alloys and structural designs for additional strength. Yes, the Dakota would have to be completely rebuilt to be canon again but I made the right decision despite the mocking of my peers.

I outmass my fellow America class superdreadnaughts by a factor of three, using the more modern AbramsEra warp drives that are only partial-canon I am able to offset the mass to acceleration issues. I can mount heavier weapons and more of them and, on the advice of my Riker, who was a Space Force Commodore before he retired, I installed nearly four times the point defense.

While the Dakota may look like a 'floating Erector Set had sex with a Lego set" to some other Captain's, I have faith in my crew's suggestions.

With that, I am ordering the Dakota to answer a distress beacon in a nearby system.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.283

Have rendezvoused with two Klingon and three Romulan battle groups. Several Constitution class an a NewGen Galaxy class, which I outweigh by a factor of six, are with these groups. We plan to jump to the outer system, keeping a gas giant between us and the rest of the system.

Some of my fellow Federation officers doubt that the Dakota meets Starfleet appearance rules but the Klingons were very appreciative of it. These are not 'regrown' Klingons, but rather 'natural borns' from Klingon itself.

A Romulus class mining vessel is with us. Having seen these in action, confidence is high among my allies.

It is there first engagement against the Precursors.

My Spock and I have tried to convince them about the dangers, but they refuse to believe it. They are convinced they will overpower 100 million year old technology like the Precursors are using. I attempted to convince them to use transphasic torpedo and ship phaser technology but they refused as it is only semi-canon.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.286

We jumped to beside the large gas planet in the outer system, quickly raising shields and launching probes to get a look at the system. There were five settled planets in the Green Zone and the Amber Zone, two of them already under ground attack.

We were still discussing counter-measures for the ground attacks when everything 'came apart' so to speak.

Three Goliath Class Precursor vessels rose out of the gas giant and immediately brought us to action. My Riker immediately ordered the photon torpedo bays loaded with transphasic warheads and 'rolled' us away from the Precursors, firing with our heavy phasers.

The NewGen Galaxy class took a full barrage of nCv cannons from the entire forward batteries of a single Goliath and broke up. They had only been using debris shields and had not believed that the Precursor ships mounted batteries ten kilometers thick and a hundred kilometers long. Literally thousands of guns. The Romulan ships went to stealth, their plan to go after their engines. The Klingons, of course, immediately closed the distance intending on performing strafing runs.

All three Goliaths were disabled and sunk into the gas giants streaming vast strands of vaporized metal.

With that, our patchwork armada made its way in-system, registering four more Goliath class vessels, including one that was landed on a dead planet with no ocean or atmosphere. The Romuius class mining vessel moved to attack that one with the idea that it was a dead ship without shields, as it had suffered severe damage to the armor.

They say the best laid plans are laughed at by God and that is how it quickly went.

The planet-bound Goliath opened fire with its guns at extremely close range. The mining vessel was disabled within minutes, falling into the gravity well. Its attempt to use the mining laser came to no effect.

The other Romulan vessels kept going for the engines of the other machines. Once we became engaged in close five more Goliath class raised up from the smaller gas giants.

The battle was fierce, and as of this writing I am not aware of any other vessels still in action. We are currently using our superior speed to keep the Precursors from the planets while our nano-forges and Creation Engines deslush.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.296

The crew of the Dakota has performed above all expectations in the defense of System-8871d2. Despite the losses of our allied vessels, despite the unexpected recovery of the three initially engaged Goliaths, we have prevailed.

The system has been cleared of Precursor threat both in system space and on planetary surface. An important piece of data is that it appears that the Precursors have decided that they have to survive to enjoy the resources so any expenditure of resources necessary for quick victory is the logical outcome. Forced Precursor vessels to retreat from the system to conserve resources. The Precursor vessels should take come time to repair before returning.

My Spock concurs.

We are currently returning to Starbase-4973 in the Gulkek System for refit, repair, and rearming. We will suggest stationing of garrison forces in System-8871d2.

--Picard 8873