Star Trek: New Horizons

Part One - A Date Across the Stars

Space: the final frontier. This is the story of the experimental starship Horizon, her ongoing mission, to push past the boundaries of science, diplomacy, and exploration, to seek out new life and strange new worlds, and to chart the great unknown expanse known as the Gammer Quadrant. - To allow a new horizon to dawn...

2380 - Star date 6234.1

Built to withstand a heavy beating, the mark two Runabout shuttle, (also known as the Hammer Class), was slow and stiff to handle. It was bulkier than its predecessor the Danube-class, despite the fact that the internal structure had been left mostly unaltered, except for some minor decorative changes.

Hank didn't really care for the shuttle's design too much, despite the fact he had designed a lot of its internal systems. The only real difference that separated it from the Danube-class, was the insane power output they had managed to squeeze out from this thing. With a smaller secondary warp core, this ship was capable of putting out enough power to keep a 20th-century city running, for a good few days per cycle. Of course here in the 23rd century that wasn't saying much; The ship's systems ate through most of that power; At a pretty steady rate. Not to mention the drain from the new experimental holo-systems...

Pulling the shuttle (so-called USS Reflection) into a stable orbit around a nearby gas giant, Hank got to work pulling up the shuttle's schematics. Having "borrowed" the ship from Jupiter station, a few days ago, it had taken him this long to get close enough for a clean signal to 'theoretically' get through. It was still very much in the air, however, and the ship wasn't exactly optimized just yet. The replicators, for example, seemed to go offline anytime he tried to engage the new systems. A fact he had become painfully aware of, having to replicate rations a few hours before he made any attempts. He had stockpiled some rations and a few flasks of coffee, which he had to reheat with a low blast from a phaser. It was a difficult balancing act, but Hank knew the results would be worth it.

Setting aside his latest coffee flask, Hank pulled aside one of the rear conduits. Power output here was down by 4%, and Hank had a sneaking suspicion it was being caused by a phase variance in the shield harmonics. Having never actually been tested in active combat, Hank was pretty sure the engineers back at Jupiter station, had miscalculated the output required for them.

Hank added this to his ever-increasing mental list, of things to go over once the Horizon finally left spacedock.

Hank had only gotten the promotion to chief engineer because of his holo expertise. If it wasn't for that, he doubted they would even let him anywhere near a starship, let alone be in charge of maintaining one.

After a few minutes of reorganizing the shield harmonics and "hot wiring" a few of the power modules, Hank finally managed to down the power drain to less than 1.5%. Which, was better than nothing.

Sinking back into his armchair Hank started keying in the connection codes. "Computer, open a channel with the USS Olympian, located in sector twelve, of the Federation's side of the neutral zone. Address the message to Lieutenant Ashari on a private channel." Hank said with confidence as he made the final adjustments.

The com-link went silent for a few minutes before the crackle of static jumped to life. "This is Lieutenant Kate Ashari of the Uss Olympian. Who is this?" The voice was warm but commanding and had the unmistakable accent of her Indian heritage.