=== "There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit." -Gen George S. Marshall === === Please direct all comments and questions to CaptainsLog@bigfoot.com === === Attention AOL users! This message may be turned into a text file by AOL. Unfortunately, this is beyond our control, and we extend our apologies to you. === === Table of Contents === 1. Editorial: John Walton === 1 === Editorial: John Walton Greetings and welcome to September's issue of the Captain's Log newsletter. Firstly, for those of you who don't know me, a short introduction. My name is John Walton, and I'm just about to start university at St Andrews, Scotland, UK. I'm actually an American (albeit with a British accent...) but have had the entirety of my secondary (aka high school) schooling in a tiny town called Bruton, near Bath in the southwest of England. Now, I'm just about to leave for university at St Andrews (motto: More than just golf!). My main RPG involvement is with Bravo Fleet -- as a Vice Admiral in charge of Task Force 67 and my own ship, the USS Hornblower. I'm also involved in several other BF RPGs, and have participated in Tango Fleet, Alpha Fleet and independent RPGs. Currently, I'm looking forward to commanding Starbase One in the Prime Directive RPG, which (as yet) isn't affiliated to the Captain's Log. With that out of the way, I'd like to welcome Travis Howard on board as my Co-Editor. He fulfils the role of basically a second me (or "Mini-me"...), a second proofreader, editor, and general dogsbody. He has participated in Bravo Fleet and currently runs his own, independent RPG, the USS Dominator SpecWar battleship. Before proceeding, a huge thank you goes out to Amy Lindeman, former skipper of the Captain's Log. Without her, none of this would be possible, and that goes for Craig Pichach, co-founder, as well. Thanks to both of you -- we'll miss your editorial input (but hope you'll keep contributing!). Amy in fact conducted the interview for this month's newsletter. Thanks also go out to our contributors this issue: our Fleet Consultants and our writers. This issue, we've had Greg Walton's (no relation, really!) article on recruiting, Julian Machin's thoughts on how Starfleet would survive in 1999, and the first segment of Travis Howard's short story, "USS Dominator". Travis and I also collaborated on the In the Spotlight review (Will Haywood was away) and the Neophyte News section. For those of you used to receiving an HTML version of the newsletter, we apologise, but due to time and other practical constraints, this has been impossible for the present issue. We'll try to remedy this for the future. Also, there's no trivia this month. Sorry about that. Please also note that this AOL address has been created solely for the purposes of sending this newsletter...please don't send any email to it! Welcome to our newest members: The USS Dominator, Star Trek: Shadow Operations, Quadrant Delta and Mason Fleet have submitted their details. Check out their websites (links are available on the "Subscribing RPGs" page). Other groups have expressed interest in joining and their applications are being processed as we go to press. If you know a group who would like to join, please feel free to have them email us at CaptainsLog@bigfoot.com Lastly, I'd like to ask a huge favor of all of you. Could you please recommend the Captain's Log to two (or hopefully more!) of your Star Trek friends? I'd really like to see our mission spreading all across the web. Subscriptions are open to everyone, regardless of fleet affiliation or none at all, and there's a signup box on our website, http://www.bigfoot.com/~captainslog. That's all for this month. Go Boldly, --John === 2 === Frustrating Fundamentals: Recruiting: Don't Make A Bad Job Any Worse, by Greg Walton, NCC1712C@xoommail.com After about a month into your command of a starship you still have only yourself and the XO aboard. You come to the conclusion, at the urging of your fleet commander, that you must ACTIVELY recruit new members for the greatest starship in the fleet. You go to the recruiting section of the fleet's website. It mentions webrings, link exchange, link pages and usenet newsgroups. You join a few web rings and put a few recruiting pitches in various newsgroups. You get a few more members and begin to sim with a crew of 5 others and yourself. Its about now that you receive some email from a ringmaster of one of the web rings you belong to. It says that the HTML fragment has been revamped and you should go to the ring homepage and grab the new fragment to replace your old one. Suddenly you are hit with inspiration. You hit the "reply all" button, drag up one of your previous newsgroup recruiting pitches and hit the send button. The next time you check your e-mail it is filled with email titled "RE: USS Need Crew." The mail is full of things like "stop spamming people!" and "nice attempt to steal our players!". You even get one that says to place this name on the Fleet's banned players list! A few days later you get some mail from the Fleet Admiral saying that you are removed from command and are on probation for 6 months within the fleet. The XO is now the CO of the ship and you are the Computer Specialist with the rank of LTjg on the Fleet Admiral's ship. You respond by telling the FADM to stick his fleet where the sun doesn't shine and that thanks to him you will never do PBEM again. Later that day you also get an e-mail that you have been removed from the web ring and will not be allowed back in for using the web ring mailing list for spamming and harassing the other members of the web ring. This e-mail cools you down enough to let you think about what you did. So, you go to the fleet's website. It is there that you find out you have violated a rule of the fleet that prohibits unsolicited e-mail recruiting (spamming), and another rule by using a mailing list without the permission of the owner. Your FADM says he thinks you will make a great player and reminds you that your rank is only for the duration of the probation. He says that a ship will be made available for you to command at the end of your probation. Now that you have read the rules and thought it over you decide to take the FADM up on his offer and six months later you have your own command again. I was recently on the spam receiving end of this scenario. I got e-mail from HOLODECK SIX, U.F.E.D., and a ship from Gamma Fleet, USS Essex. In addition to these spams I got several responses from other recepients of this spam. Among them was the Ringmaster of the web ring envolved stating that members would be removed for using web ring email lists for spamming. I replied to the spam from these by reporting it to the Bravo Fleet Admiralty and to some I wrote my own response. Being on a ship in Gamma Fleet I also sent my response to the Essex spam to the XO of Gamma Fleet. I received an apology from Holodeck Six and FADM Bremer [Bravo Fleet CO] received an e-mail stating that the UFED message was sent by a junior officer who thought he was doing the organization a favor. Gamma Fleet or the CO of the USS Essex has yet to respond as of this writing. [Gamma Fleet's XO did respond to Captain Hammond, but when we went to press the latter had not yet forwarded it to the Captain's Log. Please feel free to forward your response to us for inclusion in an "In The Open" report. -Ed.] This is a classic case of having the exact opposite of the desired response to your recruiting efforts. I, and I'm sure most of the other recepients of these messages, will never visit these organizations for gaming. In the case of the Essex, this CO has just made it harder for any ship in Gamma Fleet to get new members. Recruiting is hard enough without adding to the difficulty by turning off people to PBEM games by spamming them with recruiting pitches they did not ask for and most likely don't read anyway. As a Bravo Fleet Command Academy instructor I always tell my students that this sort of thing is a total waste of time. Not just for you but the receiver of such spam as well. Aside from the fact your spamming people you're stealing an email list. Both acts are unethical to say the least and they are probably aginst your fleet's recruitment rules. Greg Walton, aka Captain Matthias Hammond, CO USS Bonhomme Richard === 3 === Subscribing Fleet News, in the chronological order in which they were received. [Remember...if you'd like to see your fleet's news here for the next issue, please submit it to CaptainsLog@bigfoot.com. --Ed.] BRAVO FLEET: I first want to congratulate and thank every member, past and present, of Bravo Fleet for a very successful second year!! That's right, Bravo Fleet celebrated its second anniversary in August. Without all of you, the players, we wouldn't be here. You all deserve a pat on the back. In the last month, we have made a few changes/upgrades/updates to our websites, adding JAVA, new features, and new sites. We feel we have improved an already great website for Bravo Fleet. We also picked up two more awards for our sites and also got listed on the Top 200 Star Trek Sites list. Stop by www.bravofleet.com and vote for us. We also started a new Fleet wide newsletter, the Bravo Fleet Communicator. This newsletter will discuss events in Bravo Fleet, interview players and staff members, list recent promotions, and other Fleet activities. Anyone, Bravo Fleet player or not, is welcome to subscribe. We'll have the site linked to our main site soon. Lastly, I want to congratulate John Walton on taking over the Captain's Log. I'm sure he'll do a great job, but we will miss Amy. USS DOMINATOR: The Dominator is heading into her fourth month of active duty and the crew applications keep pouring in! 21 enlisted and officer players currently sim aboard the USS Dominator. With a new combat mission looming on the horizon and a long-term plotline being set up, Dom crewmembers are being tested to their simming limits as new plot developments happen every day. Visit http://www.members.tripod.com/capt_hunter and see what we're all about! STAR TREK: SHADOW OPERATIONS: The USS Fearless has recently succesfully defended a Starfleet R & D Shipyard from the Dominion. Bravo Squad have been deployed aboard the Dominion's newest battleship. Following their unsuccessful attempt to blow it up, and the Romulans' deactivation of the phase cloaking device, they have commandeered it, and are now fleeing Dominion space with their entire fleet in hot pursuit. The USS Avenger is attempting a rescue of Ambassador Spock, who has been kidnapped by the Orion Syndicate, while the USS Repulse's crew is involved with dealing with an evil Klingon Fek'lhr cult, who are bent on murdering Emperor Kahless. Last, but not least, the USS Ticonderoga are inside a Dominion communications center and are ready to send fake signals to Dominion ships. All in all, an exciting month for Star Trek: Shadow Operations! MASON FLEET: A new starship hits our fleet quite soon. The Poseidon, a new ship of the Mason Fleet. Being one of the few new Centaur-class ships, it will still have an "NX" in its registry. It will serve as a battleship and research vessel for short-range missions. This new ship will arrive sometime next month. SEVENTH FLEET: The Seventh Fleet is on the roll again. The Fleet's managers Rear Admiral McFarley and Commodore Carter have started a new campaign to renovate, update, and beautify the Seventh Fleet. Our goal is to get this wonderful fleet (running for almost five years) to return its original setting with many members. This project includes rebuilding and updating pages, creating new features and a new newsletter for the fleet. Come visit us at the Seventh Fleet, and witness our progress. === 4 === In the Spotlight: Star Trek: Shadow Operations -- by the Editors Star Trek: Shadow Operations is one of our newest members here at the Captain's Log, so we decided to go take a look. The ShadowOps Fleet -- or Task Force as it should be classified -- contains four vessels. The USS Repulse, the USS Avenger, the USS Ticonderoga, and the USS Fearless. The USS Fearless is ShadowOps' flagship. Bravo Squad is ShadowOps' "elite" simmers. A SEAL team of sorts, Bravo Squad is based on a starbase and commanded by the person who appears to be the highest-ranking officer in the game, Admiral Sorvek. The group is obviously geared towards the intelligence/covert aspect of Starfleet, with its prototype devices etc. However, this does not appear to ruin the game with the use of "superhero" technology, so prevalent in some other games. The main webpage of the RPG is well laid-out, without the enormous graphics which proliferate among certain other RPG sites. Sensibly, they have placed their webrings and other links at the bottom, so a player wishing to immediately proceed to other sections of the site does not have to wait for the page to load before doing so. The five units of Shadow Ops each have their own site. One, the USS Repulse, was not linking properly at the time we checked. The USS Avenger, A Defiant-class vessel, is commanded by Captain Theros Rian. They've got four missions under their belt, going on their fifth. A very no-nonsense and straight-forward website. Good luck in your future missions, Captain Rian. The USS Fearless, Sovereign-class, is ShadowOps' flagship. Commanded by Captain Sortha, the Fearless looks to have seen their share of action although they do not have their mission logs posted. What surprises us is that the Fearless is the flagship, yet the commanding admiral of ShadowOps is not on board. Strange, yet this system seems to work for them. The USS Ticonderoga, Nebula-class, is the final ship in ShadowOps. Strangely, there is no mention of the commanding or executive officer on the page. It appears that the second officer, Commander Rick Tafner, is the only higher-ranking contact. The Ticonderoga site itself features a timeline of events from past missions, which is very insightful. Whisper from the Shadows, the official ShadowOps newsletter, can also be found here. The ship herself only has one mission posted, "Red Squadron Training," so it appears that this ship is fairly new. Good luck to the Ticonderoga and her crew on their future RPG efforts. Bravo Squad is the elite force in ShadowOps with about nine members on active duty. The organization itself looks to be the foundation behind ShadowOps, as they appear to have 15 whopping episodes under their belt. As the commanding officer of a covert ops/warfare vessel myself, Travis can attest that ShadowOps seems to have their bases covered. Complete and detailed, Star Trek: Shadow Operations looks like a great game! The URL, for any interested, is http://www.best.com/~ekwoo/shadoops/epseven/index.html Tell 'em Captain's Log sent you! :-) === 5 === Meet the Members: Paul Knott, Founder of the Starfleet Cooperative [Note: Thanks to Amy for this interview. -Ed.] Amy: Hi Paul! Thank you for agreeing to do this, my final interview as Editor of the Captain's Log, with me! To begin with, you are the coordinator of the Starfleet Cooperative, correct? Could you please describe for our readers, briefly, what Starfleet Cooperative is? Paul: That is correct. The idea behind the Cooperative is to basically promote better relations and the free trade of ideas between all those Fleets out there. And also to create something of a solid idea of what the RPG Galaxy looks like, for example, if someone has created their own race, with their own region of space etc. then the other groups within the Cooperative (within certain guidelines) can use them in their own RPGs, this way we can draw up a more 'RPG canon' picture of the galaxy that we play around with. Amy: That sounds like a rather large venture. How many organizations have joined in your Cooperative thus far? Paul: At the moment (bearing in mind that the cooperative is only about 3 weeks old) we have 6 'Fleets' involved. Amy: That's pretty impressive. *smiles* How exactly would an interested fleet go about joining this venture? Paul: At the moment, the only way for a fleet to apply for membership is to contact me. In the future I'll be adding a joining form to the website. Amy: And what inspired you to organize the Starfleet Cooperative effort? Paul: Well, that's a weird one. I've been having thoughts about this for a while (I can't really remember where the original idea came from). All RPG's play around in the same galaxy, so I thought, why not try to create a 'standardised' galaxy for this, and then the idea kind've evolved from there. Amy: Have you participated in many RPG ventures in the past? Paul: Well, yeah, I'm currently Executive officer of Bravo Fleet. I met Mike Bremer (The CO of that Fleet) when we were a apart of Tango Fleet about 3 years ago, and we kinda went from there. I'm also attached to Alpha Fleet and several other ships in Bravo Fleet. I want to assure people who want to join the Cooperative that this will in no way make me biased, I have two advisors that never agree on anything, and I vow to listen (As I always try to do) to both sides of any argument before making any kind of decision. Amy: That's a very open opinion to have and I know that it can be difficult at times, I hope you succeed in it. Are your advisors also from Bravo Fleet? Paul: Yes they are, and I know that this could cause worry among other groups, all that I can do is re-iterate that I will be totally impartial. Amy: It's understandable that starting out your staff will come mostly from the RPG which founded you -- to begin with, CL staff came exclusively from the few fleets who started from the ground level, but I am happy to see that our diversity is growing. Will there be any opportunities for interested individuals to help in the administration of the cooperative? Paul: Absolutely, once we're off the ground and actually doing some good out there, there will be several major roles that members from other fleets will be able to undertake, from the advisor role, webpage creation, archiving the conversations, even up to the directors job, this kind of thing is bigger than one person, so when I created this I decided to include a clause in the rules that would allow the others to, if necessary (ie if they lost confidence in my ability to effectively run or control the proceedings etc.) vote me out of the position of Director and appoint someone else. If this should happen I will willingly step down and allow someone else to 'hold the reins' as it were. Amy: What made you become interested in the demented little world that we call internet RPGs? Paul: Another funny question. It happened Just over three years ago, I was at college one day, and I got bored, so I did a search on the net for Trek roleplay groups, and I found one called Tango Fleet, I took a look around the site and decided there and then to sign up as Chief Engineer. I've been on that ship now for 3 years (The USS Pegasus, Bravo Fleet Flasgship) Amy: Well, I guess boredom can sometimes be a good thing. *laughs* Actually, that's pretty similar to how I got involved in RPGs as well. *smiles* I guess for all you recruiters out there that's one more testament to the good old fashioned search engines. Do you spend a lot of time on the internet, Paul? Paul: Hmm, yeah you could say that I do. I've been at college for the past two years taking a Graphic and Multimedia Design course, specialising in Web Design, and now I'm entering the 'work' sector I hope to create my own Web Design business. Most of my time spent on the net these days is reading and writing posts for RPG's and creating webpages. Amy: That's pretty cool. :-) Web Design is certainly a good business to be in these days. Back to the Cooperative though, do you and your advisors have any goals for Starfleet Cooperative in the future? Paul: At the moment, we're still fine tuning the goals to make them more 'understandable' for everyone (We know exactly what we want to achieve, we're just finding it difficult to put it all into words). Amy: Well, I wish you the best of luck in that process. Is there anything that our individual readers can do to contribute to this effort? Paul: Well, basically, just spreading the word. If they are members of a fleet, I'd ask them to please ask their CO's to contact me or look at the page (Although at the moment, the best thing to do it contact me as the site is under construction). Amy: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me, Paul. Is there any closing thought you would like to leave our readers with? Paul : The pleasure was all mine, thank you for giving me
the opportunity to blatantly advertise my latest venture :) As for a closing though, I
could ramble on for a while about tolerance etc. But I guess I've talked for long enough,
so basically, even though I personally have no religious inclination, all I would like to
say that the Christian faith has one of the most universal truth's in the form of one of
their Commandments - Love Thy [Interested fleets can contact Paul at Jarovik@jarovik.freeserve.co.uk. --Ed.] "Four Keys to Making the Most of Online Writers'
Groups" -- Article featured in the September 1999 edition of "Writer's
Digest" * * * Although you may be participating in an online RPG group from the comfort of your home, it's important to remember the words you send aren't confined to your home. You don't know these people except as disembodied words; in many cases you don't even know their real names. So, just be as if you were walking alone in a strange neighborhood, it's best to be cautious and polite. The general rules for critiquing a post or other factor in roleplaying should apply: Always start with the strengths of the writing. Praise the things you like or that the writer does well. It would be an extremely rare player that doesn't have some kind of promise. When offering criticism, phrase your words as a positive suggestion rather than a negative complaint. For example, rather than say, "you have no idea about my character!" say instead, "I realise that you're new to this RPG, but faced with this situation, s/he would do this..." Avoid saying "don't," as in "Don't rush the storyline." Instead, "The storyline may move too quickly; take a little more time with the characters so we're more involved." Of course, this takes more thought and care on your part, but if you want people to be thoughtful and caring about your work, you must do it with theirs. Also, this helps you develop skills with which you can better critique your own writing. Now, if you are on the receiving end of criticism, keep these things in mind: Anyone who offers rude, crude, or nasty criticism is to be ignored completely. It doesn't matter who they are (or say they are), or whatever rank or position of responsibility they claim to have--they clearly are not interested in improving your posting. Their goal is to promote themselves, which makes their analysis suspect. It is important not to respond to that person with anything more than "Thank you for your help." Sure, you may be trembling with anger when you tipe those words, but you have nothing to gain from attacking him or her. You don't want to spark a cyber version of road rage. Remember that inexperienced critics, despite the best of intentions, don't always know how to articulate precisely what they mean. Don't explain or make excuses for what you were trying to do, just ask questions to try to get a clearer sense of what they mean. For example, you might ask, "Can you name specific instances that seemed to be inappropriate?" The nice thing about cyberspace is its vastness. If you don't feel comfortable with a particular group, which just a few key strokes you can join another. You should always come away from your group feeling inspired to write. If you don't, start surfing. === 7 === Would Starfleet survive in 1999? By Julian Machin, jules@jules.freeserve.co.uk We marvel at its smooth running and seamless effortless mêlée of perfection. The 24th century looks pretty cool and hassle-free. But just for a moment imagine how a starship or the Federation would function in 1999! Here are this writer's insights on what might happen. Firstly you would have to imagine a sickbay in 1999 aboard, say, an Intrepid class starship. For starters you can forget a, EMH, hypospray or medical tricorder. In fact, where the hypospray seems to cure everything in the 24thcentury we have a 1999 equivalent, aspirin. Confronted with a deadly virus most of the crew would die in 1999 unless a good steam inhale session or a week in bed would cure it. We'd be stuffed in space with today's medicine. Can you imagine being faced with a burn or a broken limb? No magic 24th century purple light torch wavy thing, oh no! We're talking plaster or weeks in reconstructive surgery. If we did have an EMH in 1999 his greeting would not be "Please state the nature of the medical emergency"‚ it would be "Can your medical insurance cover this?" Deep space exploration would be a dangerous activity. Faced with a Romulanwarbird or Klingon attack cruiser, our only defence would be UN sanctions or laser guided bombing for a few months on key military installations. A peacekeeping envoy would have no chance against a Borg cube. Faced with a first contact situation we would firstly ship millions of immigrants to the newly discovered race's planet. Then, we'd ravage their existence for a few years, introduce a few new illnesses, then pillage the place of all natural resources. Then, we'd say, "Hi by the way, get lost, we live 'ere now, all right?" Computer systems on starships... Okay, Harry Kim would be calling the "Starships R Us" helpdesk every twenty minutes, performing scandisks and defrags. Typical challenging computer related engineering situations would be as follows... "Okay Captain, sorry, we need to delete Janeway holonovel three, we can't keep using Disk Doubler and Virtual Memory -- we need some more space on drive C." "Get Starfleet Command on subspace net meeting, use the ISDN line if you have to, priority transmission!" "I took loads of readings on my away mission, but the batteries on my tricorder ran out." "What? They were brand new!" " Tuvok lock phasers. What do you mean we're in safe mode? Quick, restart!" "Okay, Tom, get out the Autoroute GPS (Galactical Positioning System) program for the Delta Quadrant." "Send a message to the Romulan Praetor! We will not stand for such aggression. Their email server is down again? Okay call the helpdesk. Log a fault. Four hour response? Quantum torpedo their homeworld!" "Warp core breach? Anyone got an AAA card?" "Look, log on and download it. I don't care how long it takes, use the ISDN line if you have to. If we can't install the new drivers for the dilithium matrix we're stuck here." "Tell the security team to stop playing multi payer holodeck Quake 104 and get to the mess hall." I think the majority of Star Trek episodes would have to have serious sponsorship. Much of the key phrases used in Star Trek would have to be changed slightly, for example "Make it So" would probably have to be changed to " Just Do it". "Engage" would be replaced with "Warp nine because we absolutely have to be there, on time." Many of the main characters would be involved in endorsements. For example Dax would be promoting Oxy-10 pimple remover. Picard would a have a hand in Rogaine hair promotions. Neelix would be a Taco Bell fan and Snap on Tools would be "Great to use in engineering for those warp core breach moments" from Geordie. I think Tuvok would be introducing you to Mr Smith and Mr Wesson, Worf would be cutting it with JA Henckels. Counsellor Troi would be suggesting you call 1-800-Dr-Laura for advice. Warp drive would be "a McDonnell Douglas thing for safer space travel". Structural integrity, by Volvo. Dilithium crystals would be the Exxon fuels of today for tomorrow. Just call 1-800 Eliminate for those phaser or photon torpedo needs. Just imagine a collision with a cosmic string, goodness more airbags than a bouncy castle. LOST: Sebastian Reese, Associate Editor. His email address is permanently bouncing. Would anyone with information please contact the Editors. === 9 === Fiction: "USS Dominator: 'Birth of a Legend' " by Travis D. Howard - Author - =/\= Chapter One - Launch =/\= Rear Admiral Daniel Hunter planted his feet squarely on the bridge deck plates, hands behind his back, watching as the skeleton bridge crew moved from station to station. Reports passed back and forth as the final preparations for departure were made. "Admiral," the ship's Flag Captain and XO, Captain Michael Garret, called. "Dockyard signals a green light, sir. We're all set on this end. Request permission to depart." Hunter nodded in affirmation. "Very well, Captain. You may clear all moorings." "Aye aye sir," Garret responded, snapping his hand to his brow in salute briefly before turning to the helm. "Ahead one quarter. Starboard thrusters on standby." "Ahead one quarter, starboard standby aye aye sir." Hunter managed to clear loose equipment from the command chair and sat down, feeling down the armrest in an attempt to get to know his new chair. Comfortable, but not too comfortable. In the brief moments of rest, the admiral reflected on past events. Things seemed to have flown by at warp speeds since the Dominator Project began. It felt like only yesterday that Vice Admiral Amanda Saratt resigned from Starfleet, practically putting Dominator Project right in front of the Federation Council. Hunter could remember her resignation speech - full of lies about her career as a "normal Starfleet officer" - and the feelings of anger and desperation that washed over him. She abandoned us, he thought coldly. She was a coward. More worried about her career than the defense of this Federation of Planets. Daniel Hunter took the project's big chair in a desperate attempt to save it. Thank God Fleet Admiral Kholer endorsed it in a secret budget allocation. Hunter's career - worse, his life - was on the line. Starfleet was all he ever knew, and the SPECWAR Division was his home. If something were to take that away from him... "Admiral, we have cleared the docking port." The Quartermaster's voice brought him out of his daydream. He silently reprimanded himself for being lost in thought during so critical a time. It was time to focus, he told himself. The test cruise of the Dominator was far more important. "Very well," he responded, almost automatically. One of those procedure-responses that was imbedded in him. "Engineering, bridge," he keyed into his headset. The Dominator, aside from wearing completely different Starfleet uniforms, did not use comm badges as freely. Instead, a small one-ear headset replaced it, which had far better range and clarity, not to mention security. While the comm badge, if activated, could be picked up by enemy tracking during stealth mode, the headset communications were far more difficult to detect. Besides, most of the crew found it an almost welcome change of pace, even though the traditional comm badge was still worn. "Bridge, engineering. Chief Daras reporting, sir." "Begin full-system startup sequence. Bring us online, chief. It's time to start this show." "System startup, aye aye sir. We're throwin' coal in the furnace now, sir. Engineering out." The channel clicked off with a soft tone. "Three minutes to complete M/ARC startup," the Operations Officer announced. "Alpha phase.now." Hunter sat back and reveled at the sheer efficiency of the crew. The entire shipboard protocol was largely military, modeled after old Earth's United States, which was the more efficient and effective protocol systems on the planet before world war three. The ship herself was something that the admiral reveled in, as well. She was the greatest battleship the Federation had ever known - the trick was, the Federation didn't know. Not even the President himself knew of the USS Dominator, and if he did, he would throw a fit. If the Federation prided itself in being less militaristic and more accepting, then the Dominator was the odd one at parties. Ironic, Hunter thought, that the vessel Starfleet never knew existed would be their finest knight-in-arms - a powerful force; never to be seen but always felt. He chuckled to himself again. Such was life in SPECWAR - it certainly wasn't a hero's organization. At least not a recognized one. A loud cry of victory emanated from the ops station, pulling the admiral back to the task at hand yet again. Hunter shot the ops operator an icy stare for his less-than-protocol outburst. "Sorry admiral," he replied, although not very apologetically. "All systems online and functional." Unable to contain himself, his mouth broke into a grin. "She's got one hell of a heartbeat, sir, and I could swear that she was thumpin' the Battle Hymn of the Republic." A few of the bridge crew chuckled. Hunter smiled. "Your knowledge of Earth history is exemplary, ensign. Your encouraging news is also lightening. Now please return to your duties. We've still got a ways to go yet, and it's only the beginning of this test cruise." =/\= TO BE CONTINUED... =/\= === Final words === Thanks for reading. We hope you enjoyed our latest issue. Please send any comments or questions to the addresses below, not to the address from which this has been sent. Oh...and feel free to forward this to any fellow Trekkers out there! Boldly Go, --John and Travis ==================== == Please note our new contact addresses == |
