Sourced From: Stout Hearts and Broken Chains: Starfleet and the Orion Syndicate, 2250-2280, by Quara Poylon. Task Force Blackfriar was one of several anti-piracy formations active during the spring and summer of 2259. Blackfriar would replace the overstretched Task Force Qu'Lomu on April 11th and would cover the critical Vota Star Cluster until 2260. The diagram above represents the task force in late August 2259, just before it had many of its cruisers transferred to take part in Operation Singapore. The task force was typical of many operating along the length of the disputed area in period before the Rittenhouse reforms. It is a typical "Mendez Column" - the term for the ad-hoc formation first used by Captain Jose Mendez, based around compensating for the fragility and slow speed of Starfleet cruisers with a larger force of small, fast cutters, sloops and frigates. Task Force Blackfriar was a strong formation on paper, but was also tasked with covering a large region of both the border and the internal Federation Treaty Zone. Unlike later border formations, it lacked the backbone of the CRURONs and later the Rapid Reaction Forces for heavy firepower in case of a crisis; instead, the best it could offer was the Nimitz Class Bertram Ramsay and the Marco Polo, a new ASR cruiser built on a constitution frame. Blackfriar was commanded by Commodore Thomas Moody. Moody was a typical career officer. A Graduate of Starfleet Academy and the Portsmouth Tactical College, he had served for nearly 20 years in the exploratory fleet. As a lieutenant commander he earned a citation in the second Orion Police Action, where he commanded a destroyer within Admiral Rittenhouse's force. Moody was not an ambitious commander, and had no time for those who viewed the Stellar Service as an "up or out" organisation. As such, he butted heads with figures like Rittenhouse and Nogura over policy, while remaining subordinate to their plans and orders. Moody had commanded the Bertram Ramsay for five years before 2259; it had previously been Shukar's flagship on the Tholian Border before being transferred to the 3rd Fleet. Hurriedly drafted into action after the Binary Star, the Ramsay would see action throughout the entire war, forming part of the Regulus defence perimeter at the time of the armistice. Peace brought a promotion to Commodore for Moody, at Admiral Drake's reccomendation, and a position as a sector commander in 2nd fleet. For a while, the Ramsay was tasked with standard Stellar Patrol duties, until the explosion of Orion piracy in early 2259 saw a return to combat duties as a task force flagship - the task the Nimitz had been designed for. By April, the horrifically overstretched Task Force Qu'Lomu had been decimated by combat losses and mechanical failure. With no choice but the withdraw it, Admiral Drake would replace it with Task Force Blackfriar, and ad-hoc formation thrown together under Moody's command. It's area of patrol would be the Vota Star Cluster: a collection of 45 star systems near the edge of the Orion Neutrality Area, containing over 24 inhabited worlds and 13 Federation colonies. Downstream from the Orion Belt subspace slipstream, it was a difficult area to navigate, with subspace forces pulling ships at warp spinward towards Rigel, allowing pirates and slave raiders a rapid escape route back into the neutrality area. Ramsay would form the core of Blackfriar alongside six other vessels; USS Marco Polo, Ivanova, Capor Bona, Konig, Cassel, Gordo Stevens and Molly Cobb. These cruisers can be divided neatly into two groups: pre and post marvick. The Pre marvick cruisers (Ivanova, Garav, Gordo Stevens and Molly Cobb) were built around the Eaves-Beyer drive and the Trinary computer system. By 2259 they were rapidly showing their age, especially when compared with the marvick vessels and their duotronic computer cores. They were, however, all Starfleet had; unable (and unwilling) to draw assets from other duties and sectors, Klingon Command made do with what remained until shipyards could pick up the slack. In the case of Blackfriar, this meant being saddled with two Shepard class vessels, a class notorious for it's weak shields and slow acceleration rates: exactly the wrong type of ship for anti-piracy duties. USS Garav - a Hoover Class vessel - was a notoriously badly built ship. Moody tried on several occasions to have her decommissioned, but despite issues with her impulse engines, phaser turrets, manouvering thrusters and life support, there was simply no replacement for the Garav. The post-marvick vessels, however, were much stronger. Blackfriar was lucky to include two Loknar class ships: Capor Bona and Cassel. These Andorian designed ships had been built as a deterrent against the Klingon D4 in the early 2240s, and had been rapidly and successfully upgraded to the marvick drive in 2244 and 45. They had a strong combat record during the Klingon war, but were thin on the ground: Klingon Command only had seven in it's whole roster. The fact that Blackfriar retained two for most of 2259 is a clear sign of how important the Vota star cluster was to Admiral Drake. USS Konig, however, was a Pioneer class vessel. The Pioneers were not bad starships- they were simply not combat ships. Officially designated a "utility cruiser", the Pioneer was overtly built to perform the duties of an exploratory vessel, but with a shorter range and smaller capacity; outpost maintenance and resupply, expeditionary support, colonial relief and other flag-flying duties. They were stable platforms for sensor suites, but not phaser turrets. They could be relied on in combat if they were in pairs but otherwise they performed as sluggishly as the Shepard. The main advantage they had - a superior deflector screen - did save many Pioneers when other ships would have been destroyed. The Marco Polo was a very new vessel when it joined Task Force Blackfriar - so new, in fact, that no other vessels of the class were in action. The Marco Polo was the first ASR - advanced Sensor Redboubt - cruiser, the culmination of a 20 year project to build a vessel with the highest spectrum of sensor equipment possible. built on a rejigged Constitution spaceframe, Marco Polo carried the one-two punch of having immense scouting abilites and a powerful weapons array. It was, however, a protoype, with many teething issues. More importantly, it was the only vessel of it's class. No captain, not even the veteran Angella Fukuhara, was willing to risk her too much, lest she fall into Orion - or worse, Klingon hands. The rest of TF Blackfriar was formed of various smaller craft - the most important of which is the Burke Class. The Burke is discussed in detail in Chapter Six - for the sake of this article, I will simply re-iterate that the Burke was a rapidly designed and fabricated frigate, built around incredibly high speeds and a pair of powerful phasers. It was, really, a "bird of prey killer", and would essentially render the B'Rel and similar classes obsolete until the introduction of the I-34-B disruptor allowed heavier weapons to be carried on the smaller Klingon ships. Blackfriar's high Burke count six of the eighteen in service in the month before Caleb IV - is entirely down to the difficult stellar terrain of the Vota star cluster, and the large area of space TF Blackfriar had to cover. The Burke would find ideal hunting grounds there, especially amongst Orion pirates who dared to try and outrun her. The new class had a high rate of wastage, however; by mid 2260, 12 of the 28 launched in the last 10 months had been withdrawn from service due to mechanical failure. Blackfriar's eight months in the star cluster can arguably be considered a "success". Comoodore Moody and his subordinates were capable commanders who harboured their paltry resources well, able to use their Burke class frigates the harry and herd Orion craft into the jaws of the slower cruisers. His heavy hitters were also a capable, if limited deterrent against several Klingon incursions into the region, which mainly consisted of D4-E Cruisers and I-1 Raptors.
By midsummer, Moody managed to end the spate of major raids into the cluster, and while piracy would never be eradicated entirely, there were no significant attacks on inhabited worlds after July. He could not build on this achievement, however. August would see many of hos best ships withdrawn to take part in the disastrous First Battle of Caleb IV. It was withdrawn at the end of the year and soon disbanded under the Rittenhouse Reforms. Its area of operations would be covered by DESRONs 2 and 11. Commodore Moody would not take part in the First Battle of Caleb IV, but was put in charge of a larger group - Task Force Moody - in it's aftermath as a part of contingency plans in case of a Klingon invasion. When no invasion came, Moody was transferred to 7th Fleet - only to then be promoted (against his wishes, but with his eventual consent) to to serve as 2iC to Robert Comsol at 1st Fleet. In the aftermath of the E-4 Incident in late 2266, he would take over as CO of the newly formed Romulan Command, which he would turn from one of the worst organised parts of the Star Fleet into the most efficent in the space of four years.
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