Star Trek: The voyages of the USS Apollo

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Acadians

September 15th 2412

"Rear Admiral's Log: Star Date 389293.620. It's been two days since my promotion to Rear Admiral and we have begun the long journey home with two additional ships, thus establishing a fleet. We have now have forty two crewmen on the Apollo and thirty crewmen on each of the duplicate ships, which we have named the Georgiou, in honour of Captain Phillipa Georgiou, and the Diamond, in reference to the Great Ark that we initially called "The Diamond" upon discovering it. Lieutenant Commander Voq is in temporary command of the Diamond while Commander Flores is in temporary command of the Georgiou until we can get some new crewmen to man the many now vacant positions in the fleet. Needless to say that will take quite some time. Time that hopefully is on our side."

Ethan was sitting in his command chair on the Apollo, staring out at the seemingly endless abyss of space ahead of them. He wondered what life laid ahead and what aliens they would recruit to the Gamma Quadrant Exploratory Fleet. He knew deep down that he would find out, but he had no clue what would become of the Georgiou and the Diamond. Ethan looked to his left to see the Georgiou, with it's new call sing of NCC-79475 and wondered what Phillipa Georgiou herself would think of it. He then looked to his right at the Diamond with it's new call sign of NCC-51537 and wondered what would become of the two ships upon their return to the Federation. He knew that they would likely be fully commissioned into Starfleet and would be assigned new Captains, but he wondered what would become of the Apollo. Surely Ethan wouldn't retain command of the Apollo now that he was a Rear Admiral. He would probably get assigned to a Galaxy or Intrepid Class ship. He would miss the Apollo no doubt, but he would treasure the memories he had on the ship.

As Ethan thought about what would potentially happen to the Apollo after their return home, Ensign Jodem Tal said "Captain. We are detecting two alien ships ahead of us with two hundred and fifty people on each one. They are trying to hail us." Ethan looked at William and said "Ensign Jackson, bring us to full stop and take us to Yellow Alert." William answered "Aye Rear Admiral." and brought the Apollo to full stop. As the Apollo came to a stop they saw the two alien ships ahead and could tell that they were in rough shape. The ships were much like the Vulcan ships from mid twenty second century Earth and seemed to be shaped like an arrow with a ring attached to it by several bridges. Around the ring were a series of thrusters that seemed to be connected to a Warp Core in the centre of the arrow. While the ships were beautiful in design, they were hideous in integrity. Their shields were practically non existent and their hulls had been badly damaged as evident by holes and explosion marks across the ship. It was clear that these two ships had experienced an even more difficult journey than the Apollo had, which only made Ethan grateful that they had managed to survive two years stranded in the Gamma Quadrant.

Ethan almost gasped as he said "What happened to those two ships?" Laren launched a scan and said "Rear Admiral. It appears that they sustained serious damage from powerful weaponry around twenty years ago and have done little in the way of repairs. Looks like they've repaired their ships at every chance they've gotten and have been trying to avoid any further combat." Ethan could tell that she was right as evident by the replacement parts that were clearly put together from various different parts. These two ships, both about twice the size of the Apollo, had been badly damaged and the Captain's must have been desperate to ensure their people's survival. As Ethan gazed upon the damaged ship, Jodem detected an open channel and said "Rear Admiral, the lead ship is hailing us." Ethan took a deep breath in to prepare himself for this first contact and said "Onscreen."

The viewscreen then changed to show an alien man with a huge scar across his right cheek and wearing damaged uniform. The alien had skin as red as blood and a v shaped ridge on his forehead that was similar to the ridges that the Romulans had. His hair was also as red as his skin and his ears had ridges like that of a Denobulan. The alien man was clearly exhausted as he said "This is Captain Jakoro, son of Jakoro. Captain of the Star Ship Sanctuary. We heard your hail that you were offering passage to a "United Federation of Planets" and sought to make contact." While Ethan was glad that they were finally getting new Crewmen, he was more concerned about Jakoro's people and asked "What happened to your ship?" Jakoro then answered "It and the second ship you see were badly damaged when we fled our home world of Acadia almost twenty years ago after it was invaded by a hostile alien race." William, wondering who could invade a planet like this, then asked "Why did they invade?" Jakoro then answered with something that caused the Crew of the Apollo, Diamond and Georgiou to gasp in shock and it was "They wanted our resources to fuel the war machine of their empire. The only other thing we know is that they call themselves Cardassians."