Captain's Log, Stardate 69590.9

Posted on Thu Aug 31st, 2017 @ 10:51pm by Captain Tim Williams

It took longer than expected, but the Highlander's refit has finally been completed, and we have left the drydock at Utopia Planetia en-route for the Cygnet system.

Over the years I've come to expect delays to creep into the refit cycle, but I can honestly say that I am proud with what my crew were able to accoplish, working with Commander Bralt's yard crews. This ship has seen more than its fair share of scrapes and blown circuits, yet they've been able to completely upgrade her systems from bow to stern, incorporating the very latest in Starfleet propulsion technology, spanning far beyond a simple warp core upgrade. This ship could now outrun even the fastest of Starfleet's conventional warp vessels easily, and if the benamite ore weren't such a rare commodity, we could skip our trip to the Cygnet system and head to the Delta Quadrant directly, with barely any time added to our arrival schedule. As rare as our use of the new drive needs to be, the possibilities it opens up for us and for Starfleet are amazing.

Even aside from the new drive system, the Graviton Catapult that the Corps of Engineers has built in the Cygnet system is a game changer in itself. Much larger than the catapult Voyager used in the Delta Quadrant, and on which the design was based, the new device has the capability of hurling ships across vast distances, and with a return catapult already constructed in the Iota system in the Delta Quadrant, we can make regular trips to and from what was once an unreachable vastness as though we were merely popping in to say hello to the Vulcans. Its only limitation so far has been its hunger for power; as we weren't able to replicate the same type of generator that the Caretakers used, and which was used in Voyager's catapult, ours needs to be in close proximity to a very rare type of star, from which it is able to draw the energy to periodically power the systems that enable us to travel so far. While theoretically the catapult could send ships anywhere, without a return catapult and more importantly the right kind of star to place it in orbit of, those ships would be stranded. We were frankly lucky to have found such a compatible star in the Delta Quadrant.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Task Force 37 has done with the Iota Command Facility. As our first step into the Delta Quadrant, aside from our ships making first contact, it will be the region's only indicator of what we, Starfleet and the Federations representatives, stand for and hope to bring to the quadrant. It's a big ask of any kind of facility, but I'm confident that our people will be able to pull it off.

We should be arriving in the Cygnet system shortly, and after our eventual arrival at Iota, I'm due to beam down to receive my orders from our Task Force Commander. So it seems I'll get to see the Facility for myself soon enough.