6: The Strategic Earthquake
The End of the "Quiet Peace" in the Beta Quadrant
Unless the recent escalation of the Orion slave trade can be limited and suppressed, it is likely that the Federation will be faced with the worst sentientarian crisis since the 23rd Century began.” – H. Bowen, head of the Commission for the eradication of the Slave Trade.
“John Brown's body lies a’moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.” – John Brown’s Body: Old Earth, 1860s CE
The Savage Trade
N’gairrez of Rigel VII did not like the slave trade; in fact, he detested with a passion that was uncharacteristic of the Orion upper classes. “My father was a slave trader. His father before him was a slave trader, and so on and so forth. The trade was the Orion way. You couldn’t not be linked to it if you were part of the mercantile class. It seeped into the bricks our mansions were built from. The blood of the enslaved watered the gardens of our arcologies in more ways than metaphorical. ” He had grown up surrounded by the wealth that the trade had brought to Rigel, whether in his parent’s house or in the lavish streets of the merchant quarter. His father, Ren’Almurr, was a member of the Syndicated Slaver’s Guild, the largest and most powerful of the Guilds that made up the Orion Syndicate, the part trade union, part criminal organisation that controlled almost all business within Orion space. His childhood was steeped in, as he put it, “the blood latinum of our people”, learning the art of business from his father through the trade of sentients throughout Badlands.
The Orion Syndicate did not begin life as a pseudo-government. When it was founded centuries ago, it was merely one of the dozens of mercantile organisations and societies that sprung up on Orion and its colonies since the early days of their civilisation’s interplanetary expansion in the mid-1200s CE. Unlike most warp-capable societies, Orion society was slow to expand its territory, even after the ruling families acquired warp technology from their neighbours in around 1300 CE. Its location at the heart of the Dilithium Belt meant that it was surrounded not just by immense mineral wealth, but by hundreds of habitable worlds and civilisations: all of whom were welcome customers and patrons for the merchant fleets of Rigel. Despite several setbacks, internal conflicts, and external crises (including a confrontation with the Vulcan High Command between around 1785 and 1924 CE), the merchant families of the Rigel were comfortable in their power and wealth. While many had made their wealth from legitimate trades, especially in dilithium, helium-3 and pergium, the illegitimate trades in piracy and slavery were just as profitable.
It is unknown when the first slave markets opened on Orion – most likely, they opened soon after the discovery of Warp Drive within the Rigel system – but their presence within Orion society was pervasive and unshakable once the ruling families centralised their power. The immense wealth that filled the pockets of both the slave traders and their customers funded their first developments in off-world colonisation and expansion that only served to expand the reach of the upper classes and keep the lower classes oppressed.
N’gairrez, unlike his siblings and parents, found the trade abhorrent from the start. “My father told me that the trade was necessary; that it made us, and the people of Orion, rich. He never said it was good, or moral. He never justified it to me by saying that those people – whether they were of our own species, or others – were inferior, or naturally subservient. For him, it was enough that the trade made our family rich and allowed us to survive. Perhaps, after a while, he convinced himself that that factor alone made the trade good. Perhaps, by doing good deeds with the money he made by selling people into bondage, he could forgive himself for what he did. Art galleries and golden statues don’t make up for selling people as property, but for him, at least, they made up for it.”
At age 12, he was exiled from the family household for three months when he refused to go with his father on a slave-hunting expedition in the Penthe region of the Triangle. He spent the time travelling in the lower levels of Rigel VII, where his disgust for the ruling classes of his planet only grew as he saw the extent of the planet’s inequality. Once he had reached the age of maturity and left his father’s household, N’gairrez distanced himself as much as possible from the trade, his childhood confusion and adolescent horror turning into jaded resentment by adulthood. His work in minerals and luxury goods trading meant that while he was constantly in contact with the beneficiaries of the trade, he had little contact with the “merchandise” themselves. “I worked outside of Orion because outside of Orion, my hands were clean. Was that cowardice? Perhaps. Not as much cowardice as believing that the hundreds of thousands in chains throughout our space were not something we, as Orion, were at fault for.”
In early 2259 he was passing through a market in the regional hub of Mastocal when he came across a long, haunting column of slaves being herded to an auction. It was not a common sight within the Empire, even if slavery was; while Orion traders preferred to display their wares publicly for auction, within the Klingon Empire most trade in sentient traffic was handled in private places. “I stepped aside to watch the column of suffering pass down the muddy, rutted track to trade, the chained beings in ranks of two staggering past in muted, cowed silence as they gazed up at their captors. It was, at first glance, the usual mix of Orions of all subspecies, Rigellians, Nausicaans, all chained together, trudging in muted silence between the stalls. Then, between the ruddy green and grey faces, a few pink and brown faces, their smooth foreheads marred with smoke and dirt. Then, more, and more until as far as the eye could see along the column these short, beings walked, with expressions of fear, anger, and defeat on all their faces. I had never seen so many Terrans in one place outside of the Federation, and never in chains. One male, in stain ochre overalls, brushed into me as he passed, earning a stun-bolt jab from his slave handler. He groaned in pain and had to be carried forward by the others. By the time the whole column had passed, I thought I had counted at least 650 Terrans of all shapes and sizes.”
There were in fact 837 humans in the column – almost the entire adult population of the Congreve Settlement on Vota V-Beta.[1] On February 25th, 2259, the life of the 1145 settlers at the farming colony on the eastern continent was shattered when three Orion vessels landed in the centre of their village. James Aitcheson, the colony’s Doctor, had been visiting a patient on the fringe of the colony when they arrived, and along with three others in his party was witness to the kidnapping of the entire population of the town. “Within about four hours, they had gathered the entire population, beaming them directly into cages they had set up in the centre of the square. Those who tried to resist were shot out of hand or beaten brutally. Mendell and Rainn (two members of the party) were insistent that we go down and fight them, but Ingram Murray, who had been in Starfleet before he retired, convinced them that there was nothing to be done right now. So, we had to sit there, and watch as our family and friends were herded into these ships and taken away, never to be seen again.”
While the Orion slave ships had been picked up on the early warning sensors at Starbase 12, they had been misidentified as freighter convoy for almost sixteen hours before they were correctly marked as hostiles. The nearest destroyer task force under Commodore Moody was focused on tailing three D-6 class Battlecruisers that were chasing the damaged USS Cassel through the Vota IV system. While it has never been confirmed, it is likely that the Congreve attack and the ensuing raids on several other inhabited systems in the Vota star cluster were the first instance in which Klingon warships worked directly with Orion slave guilds on their raiding missions. By the time the Klingon squadron was forced to withdraw by the Campbelltown, Marco Polo and Hamilcar, Orion slavers from the Y’rel Guild had seized over 8500 people from six different planets in the region of the cluster. It was the largest slaving attack within Federation space since the 2220s.[2]
It was not the beginning, or even the climax of the Orion slave trade’s attacks within the Disputed Area. By Summer 2259, the newly formed Klingon Command would be engaged in a vicious and increasingly unwinnable battle to keep the peace within their area of patrol, where their enemies would expand beyond the slaving guilds to include resurgent pirate organisations, Klingon privateers and, more alarmingly, the Imperial Navy. Starfleet Command had not been prepared for it’s post-war rebuilding to be shattered by the one-two punch of escalating piracy and Klingon interference. A memorandum from May 10th from Commander James Holland of the Starfleet Planning Committee would highlight the scale of the operational issue. “We are currently unable to restore logistical capacity, convoy escort standards or border patrol regimes to anything resembling their pre-war status. The impact of escalated Orion piracy and Klingon incursions on overall policy and strategy can be understood as nothing less than a complete and irrevocable upheaval. If a disaster is to be averted, Starfleet must acknowledge and comprehend the scale of the Strategic Earthquake in the Disputed Area as soon as possible.”
The “Strategic Earthquake”, as dramatic as it was on the Federation frontier, was merely a side affect of the massive changes the Klingon Empire was undergoing. The Economic reforms – sometimes dubbed the “Klingon Industrial Revolution” that had begun during 2257 had significant ramifications across the entire Beta Quadrant. Industrial expansion in the year 2258 outpaced what growth could be measured for the entire decade before.[3] 14 new shipyards were built across the empire in 2258 alone, along with 24 industrial complexes and 30 state civilian goods foundries.[4] Without even including the immense expansion of mining operations across the Empire, as well as the agricultural growth that began on some of the fringe worlds (at a slower, if still aggressive rate), the ‘productivity turn’ had its immediate problems. The availability of labour had always been a problem for the Klingon Empire, even with the significant number of vassal species that they had conquered since they went into space. Attempts at a widespread industrial corvee in the 2240s had proven to be dramatically unsuccessful, and wary Klingon citizens already suspected that the immense industrial expansion that L’Rell was proposing could have similar consequences. “Klingon warriors do not work in dilithium mines, or duranium foundries!” scrawled an anonymous citizen of Kling on a wall in the Orion Concession, echoing the sentiments of most within the core of the Empire. Even with prison labour being directed straight into state industry and the deep mines of praxis, manpower was running short in some parts of the Empire by as early as mid-2258. While the possibility of labour-saving devices such as industrial replicators or hi-power laser mining equipment was supposedly “on the horizon” to get to that point hundreds of thousands, if not millions would need to be sent into open cast mines, asteroid pits, and orbital foundries to meet quotas, and fast.
It is unknown when exactly the mass slave imports began. While slavery in various forms was common throughout Klingon history (with, supposedly, Kahless himself having been both a debt slave and a debt slaver at different points in his life, depending on the annal you read), industrial chattel slavery was far less common. While, for many, the enslavement of those captured in battle was an acceptable punishment for dishonour, the purchasing of slaves and the hiring of slave-capturing contractors was, for a long time, a practice only performed by the dishonourable and desperate. Circumstances, however, change opinions, especially when the punishment for failing to meet production quotas was earning the ire of the Chancellor or, worse, asset forfeiture and seizure by the Imperial Government.
Slave imports, while technically illegal under the Penal Code of Year 702 were fairly common, especially for the completion of large infrastructure projects in more isolated parts of the Empire. The Klack-del-Bracht Naval Base chain, for example, had been constructed almost entirely by indentured labour brought into the empire by Orion, So’na and Yridian slave corporations across the 2230s, but these workers had all been freed when their contracts had expired. Connections with Orion slavers had long existed – mainly as a form of disappearing political undesirables or as hired guns – but larger, official contracts had never been conducted by the Great Houses. A few had been signed by minor houses, much to the chagrin of the central government, but the numbers of enslaved measured in the hundreds. The number of these smaller, short-term contracts grew across the 2240s and 50s, peaking just before the battle of the binary stars at roughly 80 – however, these were not for large numbers of people, and if one excludes contracts for the much-lauded “Orion Slave Women” the number of contracts drops to lower than 30.[5] Larger contracts had been mooted but had been turned down mainly due to the inescapable fact that they would require raiding outside of the Neutrality Area – which inevitably resulted in interception and impounding by Starfleet. The war, obviously, changed that.
The first contract, signed by house Mo’Kai on the 11th December 2258, was for the purchase of nearly 13,000 persons across a 9-month period from the Ku’lak Slaving Guild. It was an immense number – especially considering the steady decline of the Orion slave trade across the last century. While a century before in the 2150s, the availability of chattels within the Badlands had been immense, since the signing of the Federation Charter, co-ordinated campaigns by Starfleet Command had suppressed the reach of Orion raiders. Once able to raid as far as Axanar and even Mazar, Orion trader’s battles with the Starfleet of Admiral Shran had been as quick as they had been one-sided. While a second wave of raiding and slaving came with the Great Awakening in the 2220s and 30s, the force concentration within Axanar Command and the Orion Patrol crippled their freedom of action. Operation John Brown broke the back of Crimson Dryl, the largest enslaving outfit in 2237, and with the enforcement of the Orion Neutrality Area in 2246, it seemed like days of raiding across the Federation Frontier were over.
The 2256 war had changed that entirely, and behind the waves of Klingon Warships came opportunistic raiders from the Syndicate, eager to profit from lack of Starfleet defences across the entire region. Orion activity was report as far coreward as Regulus, and Decker’s ‘Seabee Squadron’ fended off several raiding parties’ attempts to enter Beta Rigel during the month before the armistice. Even with peace, Orion action remained consistent across most of the Federation’s Beta Quadrant territory. Starfleet Command’s decision to focus on protecting the main trade routes and convoys in the immediate aftermath of war, while based on the recommendations of the Merchant Marine, left the great majority of Federation colonies and outposts beyond Axanar without any protection. The attack on convoy PD-14 declared open season on federation mercantile trade and settlements, with independent raiding soaring across 2258, from 12 attacks in April to nearly 100 in December.
It’s unclear when exactly the first slave raid on a Federation settlement occurred but records available suggest that for the first two or three months, the Ku’lak focused on independent states, colonies, and outposts, wary of attacking UFP assets directly. These raids did have significant effects, however, with the Ardana raid in February (and the Starfleet mission by the USS Emmeline Pankhurst to investigate the loss of zenite convoy AZ-04) being a significant factor in the planet’s petition for associate federation membership in August.[6] The inability of Starfleet to intervene on behalf of neutral powers and protectorates merely spurred Orion and Klingon raiding onwards, with opportunistic Imperial Captains taking to privateering for personal profit.
The February 25th raid on Vota-V-Beta appears not to have been authorised by the Ku’lak guild. considering the raid was conducted by a smaller guild (most likely the Qu’shar) acting on a subcontract, this is not surprising. The major guilds had learnt not to risk isolated attacks after the destruction of Crimson Dryl – but the fact that the raiding party managed to make it to Vota-V-Beta and back without being intercepted (likely thanks to the D6 battlecruisers that made a run through Vota IV at the time) seems to have given the Orion confidence that Starfleet couldn’t stop them – at least for now.
While it is unclear whether the presence of Klingon warships in the Vota cluster was planned or not, from that point onwards the combination of Klingon ships and Orion raiders operating together was a regular sight, especially as contracts expanded to more aggressive houses like the Duras who were perfectly happy to send their ships as direct escorts into nominally Federation Space without even the pretence of being privateers or free pirates. Klingon piracy had been a near-constant presence since the end of the armistice and had been the focus of forces in the border area since then. With the combination of Klingon raiding and Orion slaving, Klingon Command’s limited forces were pushed to their absolute limit. With most of the trade protection work being managed by a plethora of pre-Constitution class vessels such as the Anton, Cardenas and Paris class, casualties mounted as Klingon and Orion vessels of far more modern design tore through escorts and picket vessels. Starships used to operating on independent patrols were forces to band together in ad-hoc squadrons, further reducing the amount of space they could cover while also increasing their vulnerability to mass destruction by a lucky D6 or D7. The level to which the security situation collapsed in the first five months of 2259 is made apparent by the intelligence report of Starfleet Intelligence Klingon Sector in May of that year, which concluded that:
“Klingon Navy, auxiliary forces and independent raiders are able to move without interdiction by all but the most proactive and, increasingly, lucky Federation Starships. Reinforcements into the region may contribute to a reversal of fortunes, but unless a change is made in the tactics and overall strategy of Klingon Command, local superiority is unlikely to be recovering in the short or medium term.”[7]
Klingon Command was now facing a crisis which seemed to have little solution. “I think it is safe to say that these are not aftershocks,” Admiral Nogura would note in a memo to Commander, Starfleet, only a few weeks after Holland’s fateful description. “We’ve got a whole new problem on our hands.”
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
As of late May 2259, Klingon Command had existed for barely 9 months. There were some who argued, with some credence, that the creation of the Command was a bad idea. Admiral Nogura, for his part, pointed out that it drew too much decision-making power away from individual captains and smaller task forces, leaving them vulnerable to being caught within the ‘decision loop’, so to speak. However, to Ch’Shukar it was clear that to restore order and match the Imperial threat, a unified strategy was necessary. Control of resources and information required a centre to operate around if it was going to succeed, and the naysayers were overruled.
Agatha Drake had been the obvious choice to take command, with her experience as a field commander in the Klingon War meaning she knew the territory well. However, despite her accredited knowledge, Drake’s command style was making management of her assets difficult. The Admiral was at heart a field commander, preferring to fly her flag from a Starship (usually the Nimitz Class USS Andrew Cunningham) instead of from a Starbase. While this would have been preferable with a smaller command, with a whole theatre to control, it created logistical and communications headaches for everyone involved. While nominally, Klingon Command and its staff were based out of Starbase 19, Drake was very rarely there, and information and situation reports had to be passed on to the USS Andrew Cunningham[8] through an increasingly wonky chain of subspace relays and long-range message torpedoes. As much as face-to-face conversations with Captains were useful, they made the work of co-ordinating a strategy across over a dozen sectors or more impossible. Drake was also no good at the game of politics that area commanders must tend with – her decision to maintain the convoy system “until further notice” invoked the collective ire of the Department of Interstellar Affairs, The Federation Merchant and Marine and the Union of Federation Commercial Interests (UFCI). While the decision was undoubtedly the correct one, Drake handled the fallout badly, refusing to ameliorate the concerns of the shipping magnates and merchant mariner unions and allowing their resentment to build. Her promises of more shipping protection and new Starbases rang as hollow to merchant skippers as the Presidios’ promises of more resources did to her, but that didn’t stop the promises being made.
In the meantime, however, the operations and logistical staff who were meant to manage the theatre remained dangerously small, as did the tools at their disposal. By March 2259 Klingon Command had no more than 44 Class I rated Starships, including only 8 vessels considered capable of matching the D7 Battlecruiser.[9] Even with the priority given to Klingon Command for replacements and upgrades, the uphill battle to bring to anything close to operating strength had barely begun. Starfleet strength had collapsed from a pre-war peak of 1773 to 960 vessels, and while the fleet yards were beginning to pick up pace rapidly, the severe losses to Class I and II Medium and Light Cruiser classes were leaving a noticeable gap, especially in patrol and anti-piracy duties.[10]
With the large-scale yards at San Francisco, Antares and Laikan focusing on the production of Capital ships like the Constitution, Kirov and Decatur, the burden of small vessel types fell onto smaller and private yards. While a few of the subcontracted yards like Vickers in Aberdeen or The Mavvalar Guild on Tellar V were experienced with building Starships, most of the smaller yards were unable to match expected production times, a problem exacerbated by the Vulcan governments’ abject refusal to build any Capital ships of any type. Even the Capella and Archer class, long-vaunted for their simplicity of construction, ran into difficulty when they were handed off to private yards so the room could be made for the Class-I Starships, much to the frustration of Starfleet Operations. There were some hopes that the Cayuga class fast explorer could be appropriated for military operations, but its small crew complement and limited defensive systems rendered that moot.
The plan, generally, could be summed up as “make do for the year”: if the Star Fleet could manage with what assets they had until 2260, the new generation of light cruisers and destroyers could be brought into action with equipment and armament several steps above their opposition. Of critical concern was the so-called “sensor gap” that allowed Klingon ships to avoid detection by even the most modern Starfleet ship. Klingon vessels simply did not leave as big sensor images or warp signatures as most other ships, with the design of their ship hulls, warp drives and reactors deliberately focused on leaving as small an electromagnetic footprint as possible. Starfleet vessels, in comparison, gave off immense electromagnetic emissions when under standard operations due to the wide-ranging collection of sensor data being collected. While in normal circumstances this would make it easier to find enemy vessels, with Klingon ships it simply meant that Starfleet Vessels were lighting themselves up for Klingon ships to avoid – or find. While operating on ‘silent running’ was an obvious solution, it left vessels blind to their enemy – more blind than most Klingon Captains were in similar circumstances, with both the Tegucigalpa and Konigsberg being lost in action with their sensors powered down.
Captain Mendez of the USS Excalibur, however, developed a more successful solution to the gap. By operating in squadrons with ships of a smaller size, as well as deploying the entire complement of shuttlecraft available in a forward screen, Mendez was able to extend the sensor range of the Excalibur fivefold, while also enhancing the ability of the sensor screen to identify targets at a longer range. With the Excalibur acting as a command ship, Mendez was able to coordinate the destroyers under his command within his squadron to target pirate formations before they could hide within systems. This tactic was successfully used for the first time near Ayirn, where the sensor net was able to detect six Orion ships from the Ell’vrok Slaving Guild lurking outside the system. The Excalibur, along with the Carrick Adams, Zheng He and John Buford was able to intercept the craft, destroying 3, and capturing two. It was a highly successful operation – the shuttlecraft were too small to be spotted by most Orion or Klingon vessels, allowing them to guide larger ships onto the target.
Other Captains began to use similar tactics, and in conjunction with convoy formations on the main space lanes, Starfleet was able to clear pirates from the Axanar – Archanis and Argelius – Acamar, routes. By the end of March, Task Force Hoyer successfully secured the Barolian trade corridor for the first time since the Battle of the Binary Stars, opening Barolia, the only open neutral port rimward of Orion, to Federation trade once again. While the “Mendez Columns”, as these formations came to be known had a significant effect in containing piracy and Klingon incursions, Starfleet’s vessel gap still hampered their ability to counter the Orion and Imperial fleets. While some solutions were found at the bottom, Starfleet Command also began to push for further changes. The arrival of Admiral Shukar on the top floor of the Presidio had been followed by a major shake-up of staff. Shukar’s influence had brought many others upstairs with him, including Admiral Heihachiro Nogura, who took over as Chief of Starfleet Operations six days after Shukar became Commander, Starfleet.
Nogura already had a reputation as a force of will before he arrived at the Presidio. A deliberate, meticulous officer, he had made a name for himself as an explorer in the Alpha Quadrant, where the rate of colonisation was much slower than in the more easily accessible Beta Quadrant. Operating far from other Starships or support facilities meant his commands had often survived thanks to a keen understanding of every part of a ship, from computer cores to atmosphere recycling. This eye for detail was one of Nogura’s most well-known traits, but with it came an almost insatiable desire to manage everything under his command. “The Grand Old Man”, as he was quickly dubbed due to his taciturn manner and paternalist attitude, was a notorious micromanager, to such a level that it often turned other officers off him. He was, however, Shukar’s ideal choice to take over Starfleet Operations. Starfleet Operations was (and still somewhat is) a massive, overburdened department, responsible for day-to-day logistical support, ship design and construction, fleet readiness, shore operations, and the Starfleet Auxiliary Fleet. Its immense size often meant that the Chief of Starfleet Operations could rarely if ever, exert any overall vision or strategy onto all of its sub-departments. Nogura would never accept that, however. Within six weeks of taking office, the Grand Old Man had already begun to rapidly streamline his new command, amalgamating several committees that dated back to the founding of Starfleet into new, structured groups, while streamlining communication channels between shipbuilders, designers and Starfleet Command itself. In between this monumental task – and his own personal patronage of future leaders like James T. Kirk and Harry Morrow – Nogura also spearheaded the rapid completion of the Advanced Sensor Redoubt (ASR) Project.
The ASR project (Which spawned the Marco Polo, Advent and Bolivar Class Starships) had been envisaged as a cure for the sensor gap as early as 2251. While the project had stagnated before the Klingon War, it received priority during the conflict and afterwards, but despite the resources, the project ran into constant walls and technological hiccups. While the first purpose-built ASR vessel (USS Marco Polo) would be launched on February 2nd, 2259, from the Tranquillity Base Fleet Yard, it would be a while before they would be available fleet-wide. Even with the conversion of half a dozen Saladin-Class to Advent-Class ASR destroyers, Starfleet Operations would not consider the project a success until late 2265. So long as the “Mendez Column” remained the best path to challenging raiding head-on, lighter vessels were needed more than expensive, still technologically spotting ASR ships.
What lighter craft did exist at the time were either too large, not manoeuvrable enough or far too small to be effective against armed pirates. The scheme to upgrade the Malachowski class to Jeffries-Type standards was increasingly falling behind, a problem exacerbated by the loss of Fleet Reserve Yard 39 to a Baryon Radiation field. The Pioneer and Capella Class cruisers, while fast and manoeuvrable enough to keep up with raiders, were simply not well armed enough to face off with Orion cruisers or Klingon warships. “What we need,” Stone commented in a memo to Admiral Ch’Shukar in early March 2259, “is a vessel of the size, shape and speed of a bird of prey or a raptor, that can follow them into Asteroid fields or planetary atmospheres. We don’t need Starships to fight the Orion: we need destroyers, and frigates, and sloops, and we need them fast.”[11] A further memo laid out the specifications for this “anti-piracy frigate”. With a weight of under 150,000 metric tons, a cruising speed of Warp 7 or higher, the ability to mount 2 phaser arrays as well as carry up to 50 marines or security personnel for landing parties or “descents” onto privateer bases.[12]
Stone knew that the time between his memo and the launch of a vessel would be months, if not years. Thankfully, others within Starfleet had been thinking along similar lines to him, Including Drake. While her specifications did not match entirely with Stone’s specifications for a ‘Type 3 Patrol Frigate’, she had a decent idea of what was needed. “We need corvettes, of the old type – something like the old Jupiter and Bozeman class pickets”, she had commented to Peter Toussaint, newly assigned to her office. A chance to stop at the Axanar Fleet yards in mid-April was readily taken by the Admiral. While Axanar’s strategic importance had declined since Garth of Izar’s famous victory, its strategic position at the heart of Federation space in the UFP’s south-eastern quadrant meant that the Fleet Yards were the closest to Klingon Command. If anywhere could solve Drakes’ problems quickly, it’d be Axanar.
Thomas Marrone, chief of the Fleet Yards, had long experience with developing Starships with limited resources and less-than-eager responses from the Presidio and the allocations committee. He, like many other engineers and fleet designers of his generation, learned his trade under Franz Joseph, the Starship designer who had worked with Jeffries to design the Hermes, Saladin and Ptolemy Class Starships. Marrone had also been key on the development of the Pioneer Class light cruiser, which had been developed as a direct alternative to the still delayed Surya/Coventry Class project.[13]
“[Marrone] looked at the specifications Drake had given him, then frowned. ‘I can give you 120,000 tons and Warp Seven, or 150,000 tons, Torpedo launchers and Warp Six.’ The Admiral asked him how long for the first option. Marrone thought for a second, then replied ‘I can give you six by the end of July, and a dozen a month after that.’” Both Drake and Toussaint were surprised by Marrone’s acceptance of the plan, and the speed with which he estimated he could go from design spec to finished product. The Axanar yard had already been experimenting with downsizing various Marvick-type engine parts to produce a smaller vessel and ironing the kinks out of such a project, to such an extent that by the time Drake got the Starfleet allocations board to approve the new “Burke Class” two weeks later, almost 90% of preliminary R&D had been completed, with the framework of the first test hull already under construction.[14]
The first Burke Class frigate, USS Martin Luther King, would be launched 668 hours after her keel was laid down – an astonishingly rapid speed of construction enabled through not just the dedication of the work crews at the Axanar fleet yards, but the simplistic nature of the Burke Class design.[15] At a mere 153 meters long, and 127 meters wide, the Burke was a substantially small vessel by Starfleet standards – while not as small as the minuscule Archer-Class Scout craft, the Burke packed a significant amount of equipment into one of the smallest hulls ever rated by Starfleet Command.[16]
Refining much of the simplicity Marrone had worked into the Pioneer Class ‘Utility Cruiser’, the Burke removed many of the scientific and research facilities that dominated most Starships, instead orienting its computer systems and sensor output towards tactical operations. Most of her internal arrangement was also sparse – she only carried a single Industrial replicator and two food synthesisers, meaning that she was tied to larger vessels or Starbases for resupply. Even if this had not been so, her limited ability to collect stellar matter through her Bussard collectors meant she needed regular fuel resupply as well. These points, however, were irrelevant – the Burke was built for speed, scouting and firepower, not for survey missions. Marrone had delivered on his Warp 7 promise and more. The Burke would have the fastest Warp acceleration and deceleration rate of any Starfleet vessel until the launch of the Tucker-Class Strike Cruiser in 2275. While her manoeuvrability at maximum warp (which some captains pushed as high as Warp 9.65) was sluggish and unpredictable, the adaption of impulse thrusters from the Magee and Cardenas-class ships meant that at sub-light she was capable of out turning even the most modern of Orion commerce raiders and Klingon birds of prey. There were other issues – her phasers tended to short out at longer ranges, and the lack of a torpedo launcher would be lamented until they were withdrawn from service in the early 2280s, but for the task at hand in the second half of 2259, they were more than adequate.
Their first combat patrol – consisting of the three Burke Class ships USS Martin Luther King, Burke and Oporto, supported by the ASR Scout USS Advent and Light Cruiser USS Etherian Alliance was a resounding success. Using adapted “Mendez Column” tactics, Captain Rodriguez managed to ‘bounce’ a joint Klingon-Orion operation between Vico-Enol and Ing. While the Two D5 Battlecruisers turned to fight, the four Orion ships scattered, heading into Ing with the three frigates in pursuit. The Orions, despite several attempts to evade and hide within the system, were easily found thanks to the high sensor output of both the Advent and the three Burke-class vessels. Unable to outrun the Starfleet vessels, all four Orion ships were captured, liberating their cargo of nearly 1800 people.
Combined with the arrival of new ASR vessels, the Pioneer Class Cruiser and larger numbers of upgraded Saladin/Hermes class Destroyers, the Burke class filled a significant equipment gap within the Klingon Command. Able to match most, if not all Orion Interceptors, Blockade runners and Sloops, as well as Birds of Prey and Raptor-Class vessels, the tactical advantage the Federation’s enemies had within the disputed area was significantly reduced in combat zones. While further upgrades to Ship and Starbase sensor arrays, along with ASR technology would reduce the huge gaps in the surveillance, Starfleet still lacked a Strategic solution to the crisis. Tactically, they could match and hold Orion and Klingon Piracy at bay, but that was not enough; to do even that much required giving ground in other areas.
Even with new weapons and tactics turning back pirate raids and border incursions, Starfleet could do not nothing to stop the march of the Imperial Banner. The fall of the Enolian Union in May 2259 underlined the effects of the Strategic Earthquake for everyone to see. The Union, a significant regional power since at least the early 19th century, had been on the decline since the mid-2140s. Their monopoly on trade through the port of Keto-Enol had been undercut by the growth of legitimate Orion trade treaties while the Union’s refusal to sign up to the first Stellar Travel Accepted Rights Treaty in 2231 left them outside of the UFP’s free trade area. This, combined with general economic stagnation as well as the increasing authoritarianism of the Union government made their downward spiral inevitable.[17]. On May 13th, elements of the Klingon 1st Fleet Group (the first of the “new model Imperial fleets” to be formed) entered Enolian space on grounds of “policing Klingon trade”. Most of the Enolian fleet was destroyed within the first 40 hours, with Klingon soldiers occupying the capital before the end of the first week. The bulk of the Union, including the trade port of Keto-Enol, was officially annexed into the Empire within eight solar days.
Starfleet intelligence had predicted the eventuality of such a collapse for at least 18 months before this; Klingon Sector reports had highlighted the structural weakness of both the Enolian government and defence force since early 2257, building off preliminary reports made during Burnham’s War when the possibility to tempt the Union in on the Federation’s side was floated by the Department of Interstellar Affairs. Drake had even placed elements of the 2nd Fleet, which operated in the area surrounding Enolian space on yellow alert in the weeks before the invasion, in expectation of the glut of refugees that would flood into Federation space after the fall. The failure of Starfleet to react or pre-empt the attack was more down to strategic paralysis than anything else. Still reacting and re-adjusting to the state of the Disputed Area and the collapse of their authority, proactive action in the way the Ch’Shukar, Drake and others wished was functionally impossible, even before Prime Directive factors were taken into account. There were barely enough Starships available to aid the Enolian exodus, let alone confront the 1st Fleet Group in a game of stellar brinksmanship. In acquiescing to, and then supporting the resurgence of slavery and piracy within the Disputed Area, the Imperial Chancellery had forced Starfleet into a corner, making them choose between protecting their assets or countering Klingon expansion.
Starfleet Command, even as it digested the contents and conclusions of the Holland Memorandum, still failed to grasp the scale of the Strategic Earthquake. The disaster at Kobax IV, where a squadron under Captain Westlake of the USS Maurice Rose broke apart and collapsed under pressure from two Orion pirate groups underlined that Starfleet was just not equipped for the sort of warfare that was taking place on the frontier. Even with better ships and more confident crews, Starfleet just simply did not have the intelligence advantage to operate correctly, and without it, its strategy was entirely reactive. Unless new sources of information were found – and fast – The Orion and Klingons would stay inside Starfleet’s decision loop forever.
“Let Us Live to Make Men Free”: The Rise of the “Botchtok Whigs”
HW “Hawkeye” Rogers was not a particularly happy person in the summer of 2259.[18] While, on paper at least, their position as Federation Ambassador in situ to the Botchtok Planetary Congress (BPC) made them the highest-ranking diplomat within Orion Space, reality meant that their office might as well have not existed. Despite its status as the official government of the Orion Colonial Association, it was well known that the congress barely functioned as anything more than a legal façade for external powers. The Syndicate and the combined guilds were the real governing force in Orion space, and even though their members and power structures ran through the institutions of the BPC, there was no real power in the Congress. The Federation had understood this as early as the mid-2160s when the farcical “Year of the Pooh-Bah” made it clear to the UFP that the Congress was little more than a joke to most Orion – at best it was a quick way to gather bribes and sinecures, and at worse a nuisance.[19]
While the office had been of limited use in the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries, since the Orion Neutrality Act most actual diplomatic negotiations within Orion had been conducted through independent ambassadors directly with the Syndicates and Guilds, cutting the diplomatic station on Rigel VIII out of the loop entirely. Hawkeye Roger’s assignment to the position itself emphasised this; despite their noticeable talents and dedication to the job, they lacked the right friends at the right time to survive a spat with William Fox. Roger’s decision to go head-to-head with the elder statesman over the question of Orion Neutrality policy during the war had been misjudged, if morally correct. The posting to Rigel VIII was a clear message: stay out of Fox’s way, and maybe a more ‘active’ position would be found.
Despite being in ‘administrative exile’, Rogers found a use for themselves. In their first year in the position, they managed to completely replace the Diplomatic Corp’s cultural assessment of Orion – a document that had last been updated in 2231. When they weren’t rewriting official documents, Rogers ingratiated themselves with the ‘Liberal’ ends of Orion high society, providing a hub within the court politics of the merchant families for the progressives within the ruling elite. It was he who gave this group its eponymous nickname, first referring to the group as the “Botchtok Whigs” in a memorandum in Late 2258, comparing them to the liberal aristocrats of Earth’s Old Britain. While the English Whigs’ high moralism and dubious attitudes towards working-class representation and true egalitarians may have left much to be desired, they were the perfect analogy for the ‘liberal’ mercantile elite that Rogers interacted with. Despite these connections, Rogers was constantly frustrated in his work to help the lesser privileged of the Orion population, especially those who wished to seek asylum within the UFP – even beyond Prime Directive limitations, the Commission for Interstellar Relations (CIR) was incredibly hesitant to condone any action that may upset the Syndicates, especially when Starfleet remained weak in the region. Even as Orion slave ships terrorised Federation worlds, fears of alienating the only real ‘neutral’ power trumped the basic instinct to improve lives across the quadrant. Rogers did what they could, and found help with many of the Botchtok Whigs, who helped him pass aid onto many as well as provide routes of escape from debt slavery, indenture, and wage-servitude.
Through these channels, Rogers first came to know N’gairrez, mainly as a middleman for his associates who could help direct funds or individuals to where they wanted to be, both with legal and semi-legal means. N’gairrez’s politics, as previously mentioned, aligned significantly with that of the Botchtok Whigs and their desire for what they called “Triumphalist reform”, pushing for the abolition of slavery, the readjustment of the political settlement away from virtual representation and the severe crippling of the Syndicate’s political powers. These were not popular ideas, but the Whigs were men of standing, wealth and influence, and despite their so-called ‘revolutionary’ ideas, they were not challenged with threats of violence or imprisonment. Their politics were not considered a threat to public order or profit margins, even if its principles were, in theory. Syndicate officials were more concerned with the ‘meddling’ of people like Rogers, who brought dangerous ideas like full egalitarianism, minority protections and work-owned businesses into Orion society, and the Federation Diplomat was aware that he was under frequent observation by several of the guilds. It didn’t stop him from accepting invitations to soirees and recitals where he could debate liberalisation, written constitutionalism, and political economy with the Whigs.
They weren’t close, though. As such, Rogers was surprised when N’gairrez walked into his office. Usually, the only reason anyone would see them directly would be to obtain a S.T.A.R permit, required for mercantile trade within the Federation Treaty Zone. Whatever they expected, a list of six Federation outposts and colonies with stardates next to them was not it. N’gairrez explained, eventually, that these were the finalised targets for the Ku’lak guild’s next sweep of raids, along with the estimated number of “cargo” to be gathered and ships being deployed, along with their marshalling point and post-raid rendezvous co-ordinates. It was shocking, to say the least, and even if Rogers doubted its authenticity, he knew he had to pass it on.
The Starfleet Intelligence attaché, Commander TK Robson, quickly had the information delivered to Admiral Drake, who viewed the information with some scepticism. It was, however, the closest thing Klingon Command had to accurate intelligence in the area. SI’s Klingon Group had been practically eliminated during the Klingon War and was in 2259 entirely reliant on receiving reports from ‘patriotic’ merchant traders and extremely unreliable paid informants. The longstanding use of the “Chain Regulus” system of subspace transmitters for message interception, much relied upon for intercepting and tracking Klingon movements, was nowhere near as reliable or accurate as SI liked to believe it was, with time-delays as long as 26 days meaning that much of the information it gathered was practically useless: even the civilian subspace relays systems in the triangle (maintained by the Baker Corporation and leased for Star Fleet usage at a high markup) had quicker response times.[20] If N’gairrez’s information was right, however, Klingon Command could counter operations in real-time, instead of chasing shadows across the neutral zone.
The Advent Class ASR Scout USS Zanzibar and its escort USS Osathia Zh'shaqith were sent to confirm the report, plotting a course to the rim of the Triple Rollover system, arriving on June 1st. Having sat in the Oort Cloud for three days with nothing to report, her captain was beginning to suspect that no Orion ships were coming when suddenly the long-range sensors picked up one, then two, then nearly a dozen warp signatures entering the system. The 14 Orion ships remained on station over the 2nd planet for approximately 2 hours - long enough for the raiders to be briefed, and for the Zanzibar to isolate the individual warp signatures of each vessel. The confirmation reached Commodore Mendez approximately 6 hours later aboard the Excalibur. Task Force Mendez leapt into action immediately, the 14 Starships (1 Constitution, 2 Loknar, 2 Pioneer, 1 Avenger, 2 Saladin, 1 Advent and 5 Burke) beginning a long sweep across the targeted systems as a mass formation.
The first Orion group was intercepted on the 2nd at 14:55 Fleet time approximately 2.5 AUs from its target, the Federation Science Outpost on Turbulence III, turning it back with ease. Four more groups turned from their targets at the mere sight of the Task Force but remained unable to escape from the high war acceleration rates of the Starfleet vessels. A detachment of 1 Loknar and 3 Burke Class ships caught the last raiding party just as they dropped out of warp over the independent colony of Voltaire. Choosing to fight, all three Orion raiders were lost with all hands. By the end of day on June 9th, Task Force Mendez had allotted 4 ships destroyed and 6 captured. None of the Orion raiders had reached their targets intact.
It was a spectacular coup, for Mendez, Drake and SI alike. A further interview with N’gairrez by Robson on the 14th revealed that N’gairrez was merely one of a large network of prominent merchants who were ready and eager to gather information on behalf of Starfleet and against the Syndicate. They included several prominent Botchtok Whigs and, to the surprise of Rogers and Robson, Melum of Rigel III, deputy chairman of the Crimson Dryl Guild and member of the Syndicate’s presiding council. The fact that a senior member of one of the largest slaving guilds was willing to pass on information to Starfleet was suspicious but considering that Melum had been the source of the Ku’lak raid scoop, such suspicion was of little use.
One question remained for Rogers and Robson: why? Aiding Starfleet’s interception and possible destruction of raiding vessels put those involved at major risk: it meant violation of guild rights and regulations for sensible practice, as well as charges of espionage and treason by the Botchok Congress. It could mean death either way, whether through legal means of execution or murder by vengeful guilds. For certain members, the undermining of the slaving guilds gave them obvious advantages increasing their influence. Others rightly saw the growing resurgent power of the slaving guilds as a threat to their legitimate trading concerns, especially within Federation space. But for those like N’gairrez and Melum, they were putting a great on the line in supplying Starfleet with information: their careers, their income, their family ties and even their lives to aid a foreign power.
Roger’s report readily admits he expected to be told about some vengeful feud, or debt. He did not expect N’gairrez to reach into his pocket and place a coin-size medallion on the table. The medallion, cast in gold, showed an Orion man prostrate on his knees looking upwards in the instantly recognisable pose of the Wedgewood medallion, with the words “Are we not individuals, and siblings?” written in Orion script. N’gairrez explained that it was the symbol of the Orion Anti-Slavery Society, of which he and several others were a member. Said society was proscribed as being “anti-Syndicate” for its political message: the total abolition of all kinds of slavery, indenture, ancestral bondage and debt peonage across Orion space. It was not a movement one joined without a whole-hearted belief in its politics, and a willingness to die for them: Rogers had seen what had happened when a meeting of the society had been raided by Ku’lak security in January 2258 and had watched as society members were beaten to death in the street for daring to oppose the Syndicate. The Syndicate had a lot to fear from antislavery advocates: it believed that the entire Orion economy could not survive the abolition of all kinds of unfree labour. So much, from domestic servitude to law enforcement to raw material extraction, was dependent on it, that it was unimaginable to many that Orion society could survive without it. Even so, the guilds knew that fringe groups that did abolish it had managed to thrive. It was important to make sure that dream, however, remained so, and never became a reality, with whatever means were deemed necessary.
The demand for slaves from the Klingon empire was putting even more pressure on Orion debt peonage, and even beyond court-based enslavement, ‘body parties’ would regularly make their way through the underworld of Orion cities to gather hundreds at a time for sale. If it wasn’t stopped, N’gairrez argued, then the slaving guilds would cement their power for another century, with the Klingons to support them both in the disputed area and on Orion itself. Starfleet could make sure of that. Many of the others were just as willing to put their lives on the line to make slavery unviable within Orion space and had been for a long time, but the opportunity had not presented itself until now.
This was enough for Robson. Further pieces of information came thick and fast through message drops, coded memos and face-to-face meetings with Robson’s juniors, or even with Rogers themselves at a diplomatic function in July. It came from disparate sources; stolen or copied documentation, shipping notices, bribed officials at transfer stations or even from a co-operative of nucleonic fuel carriers operating out of Qualf who had been to pay out a debtor’s bond as resupply vessels for Ell’vrok raiding groups. Robson’s small staff soon found themselves overworked as information poured in rapidly across May and June from what SI soon dubbed “Unit D”. By the second week of June, though, Robson’s team had managed to completely turn around the intelligence picture in the disputed zone. They could now accurately chart the area of operations for each slaving guild, the rough strengths of their forces, and even place the operating areas of the 3 Imperial Fleet Groups facing Klingon Command. This was nowhere close to the near-total intelligence network that would culminate in near-total theatre command in the mid-2270s, but it was still a game changer for Drake and her subordinates. Even if they could not track Klingon battlegroups or Orion raiding parties in real-time, the interception rate jumped from a paltry 34% to nearly 80% by the end of June. Things appeared to be turning around for Starfleet.
However, Robson’s team noticed a serious change in Klingon fleet deployments. Traditional raiding tactics had continued even if the older ship classes had been replaced with newer types like the D-6A and B and new upgrades to the D7. Across May and into June, however, the number of individual raids had dropped off: even if the rate of raiding was maintained by larger formations, the number of Klingon vessels operating directly along the Federation border seemed to be dropping. As much as this was good news for the Merchant Service, it troubled Starfleet Intelligence greatly. Placements along the border made it easy to discern objectives, whether they were direct raids, convoy escorts or Fleets-in-being. The increasing trend toward operating on the edge of the Triangle – the corridor of unclaimed space between the UFP, Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire – made it impossible to discern Klingon intentions, simply because there were so many possible paths of action available to them. Unless more, clearly information could be found, that question could never be answered.
Rogers and N’gairrez were, supposedly, having dinner together when the critical message arrived on June 20th. They were in their usual haunt - an above-par restaurant around the corner from the Federation mission - when a waiter handed the Orion merchant a message from his colleague Porellun, a precious goods trader. The message, like all of Unit D’s, was in the cryptic and semi-nonsensical code they developed and read “Khitomer Traders taking stock at 4th atoll near Cadiz on 24th.” Supposedly, the moment the Orion finished reading the message, both he and Rogers leapt to their feet and raced back to the embassy without even paying the bill. The message, when decrypted, makes their actions understandable: Porellun had spotted 24 Klingon Warships in orbit over the 4th moon of system YR-164: the inhabited planet Ellec-vell, home to the last remaining independent government of the Suliban people, and only 1.2 lightyears from the Federation Outpost on Gibraltar: the furthest outpost within the Triangle.[21]
Rogers and Ngairrez both knew what a Klingon Battlegroup orbiting Ellec-vell meant. Beyond the Tactical concerns created by a fleet operating on that side of the Triangle (and so close to Gibraltar outpost), it confirmed their worst fears about Klingon motives within the disputed area. Beyond aiding and abetting piracy and sentient trafficking, the Klingon Empire was now attempting the annexation of the Suliban: the most vulnerable population in the entire Beta Quadrant and doing so right under Starfleet’s noses.
[1] Vota V-Beta was the second planet colonised within the Vota V system, one of the Seven Star systems of the mineral rich Vota Star Cluster. First colonised in the early 2220s, it is one of the Federation’s largest sources of Trellium-D.
[2] Walter Grayson, Purple Gold: A History of the Dilithium Belt (New York: Beta Quadrant Histories, 2308)
[3] Production estimates, 2240-2255, (The Imperial Chancellery, Kling, Qo’NoS)
[4] Industrial Annals of the 883rd Year of Kahless, (The Imperial Chancellery, Kling, Qo’NoS)
[5] Despite the longstanding myths around Orion Slave Girls and Pheromones, there is little proof to the idea that either Orion society is run by these “Slave women”. Science has proved that the controlling pheromones do exist, but that their potency and powers of manipulation are much more limited than certain pieces of media suggest.
[6] The difficult strategic situation in 2259 somewhat explains why Ardana was later admitted into the UFP without a full investigation of the planet’s society. Captain Kirk’s infamous 2269 report into the sentient rights violations and illegal caste systems would result in the resignation of 6 Diplomatic Corps officials and an inquiry that would send 3 of them to prison.
[7] Starfleet Intelligence Report KS-1470.3, Starfleet Intelligence Archives (Almeida, San Francisco)
[8] The Cunningham had, early in its career, served as the Admiral Ch’Shukar’s flagship.
[9] These vessels were: Excalibur, Constellation, Kirov, Ho Chi Minh, Frederick Douglass, River Plate, Indefatigable and Marco Polo. The Frederick Douglass and the River Plate, while assigned to 2nd Fleet, were undergoing deep space trials and thus not manned or fitted for full duty until July 2259.
[10] Starfleet’s Cruiser strength of 217 in 2256 was reduced to a mere 90 by 2258, which included in its number 33 obsolete Pre-Constitution types.
[11] Memo from Captain Stone (Starfleet Defensive Operations, London) to Admiral Ryn Ch’Shukar (Starfleet Command, San Francisco), February 11th 2259.
[12] Captain Stone’s use of Old British naval terminology for landing parties was not lost on Admiral Ch’Shukar.
[13] While Seven Surya/Coventry Class Starships would be launched, the modifications made to one of them (USS Miranda) would evolve into the Miranda Class Heavy Frigate from 2265 onwards.
[14] R. L. Rev glov Varthall, The Franz Joseph Gang: The Story of The Starfleet Design School (Starfleet Press, San Francisco, 2305)
[15] The Burke herself would not launch first as Marrone retained her in the yards for further tests and modifications to the class. She would eventually launch two weeks later.
[16] ‘Rated Vessels’ range from Class I Starships down to Class VII Frigates – smaller vessels, such as the Archer Class scouts, are not considered ‘rated’, and thus counted in official fleet strength rosters.
[17] The First STAR Treaty was signed by the UFP, Botchok Planetary Congress, Turnstile, The Association of Free Worlds, Mantiev Colonial Association as well as over 80 minor states and planetary powers. It remains the largest treaty in modern Galactic history, rivalled only by the Babel Agreement on the Articles of Interstellar Law.
[18] HW was, in fact, Roger’s birthname: Their parents argued for so long about whether their name would be Hilda or Wendy that their grandfather simply told the doctors to write HW.
[19] The “Year of the Pooh-Bah” refers to a series of incidents where attempted reforms to the BPC resulted in a series of more and more convoluted political ministers, from the Minister of Insurance Claims down to the Minister for Simplifying government. When the Federation Ambassador made a joke about whether congress planned to name a Pooh-Bah, it resulted in the formation of a Commission for the Nomination of a Pooh-bah and some research into the position. For more, see Memory Beta: A History of the Botchok Planetary Congress (Memory Beta, 2270)
[20] The Baker Corporation, incidentally, while originally of no relation to the Baker family of the Association of Outer Free Worlds, was bought by Eugene Baker in 2252.
[21] Gibraltar was also, until the foundations were laid on Cestus III in 2265, the furthest Federation Outpost from Earth.
“John Brown's body lies a’moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.” – John Brown’s Body: Old Earth, 1860s CE
The Savage Trade
N’gairrez of Rigel VII did not like the slave trade; in fact, he detested with a passion that was uncharacteristic of the Orion upper classes. “My father was a slave trader. His father before him was a slave trader, and so on and so forth. The trade was the Orion way. You couldn’t not be linked to it if you were part of the mercantile class. It seeped into the bricks our mansions were built from. The blood of the enslaved watered the gardens of our arcologies in more ways than metaphorical. ” He had grown up surrounded by the wealth that the trade had brought to Rigel, whether in his parent’s house or in the lavish streets of the merchant quarter. His father, Ren’Almurr, was a member of the Syndicated Slaver’s Guild, the largest and most powerful of the Guilds that made up the Orion Syndicate, the part trade union, part criminal organisation that controlled almost all business within Orion space. His childhood was steeped in, as he put it, “the blood latinum of our people”, learning the art of business from his father through the trade of sentients throughout Badlands.
The Orion Syndicate did not begin life as a pseudo-government. When it was founded centuries ago, it was merely one of the dozens of mercantile organisations and societies that sprung up on Orion and its colonies since the early days of their civilisation’s interplanetary expansion in the mid-1200s CE. Unlike most warp-capable societies, Orion society was slow to expand its territory, even after the ruling families acquired warp technology from their neighbours in around 1300 CE. Its location at the heart of the Dilithium Belt meant that it was surrounded not just by immense mineral wealth, but by hundreds of habitable worlds and civilisations: all of whom were welcome customers and patrons for the merchant fleets of Rigel. Despite several setbacks, internal conflicts, and external crises (including a confrontation with the Vulcan High Command between around 1785 and 1924 CE), the merchant families of the Rigel were comfortable in their power and wealth. While many had made their wealth from legitimate trades, especially in dilithium, helium-3 and pergium, the illegitimate trades in piracy and slavery were just as profitable.
It is unknown when the first slave markets opened on Orion – most likely, they opened soon after the discovery of Warp Drive within the Rigel system – but their presence within Orion society was pervasive and unshakable once the ruling families centralised their power. The immense wealth that filled the pockets of both the slave traders and their customers funded their first developments in off-world colonisation and expansion that only served to expand the reach of the upper classes and keep the lower classes oppressed.
N’gairrez, unlike his siblings and parents, found the trade abhorrent from the start. “My father told me that the trade was necessary; that it made us, and the people of Orion, rich. He never said it was good, or moral. He never justified it to me by saying that those people – whether they were of our own species, or others – were inferior, or naturally subservient. For him, it was enough that the trade made our family rich and allowed us to survive. Perhaps, after a while, he convinced himself that that factor alone made the trade good. Perhaps, by doing good deeds with the money he made by selling people into bondage, he could forgive himself for what he did. Art galleries and golden statues don’t make up for selling people as property, but for him, at least, they made up for it.”
At age 12, he was exiled from the family household for three months when he refused to go with his father on a slave-hunting expedition in the Penthe region of the Triangle. He spent the time travelling in the lower levels of Rigel VII, where his disgust for the ruling classes of his planet only grew as he saw the extent of the planet’s inequality. Once he had reached the age of maturity and left his father’s household, N’gairrez distanced himself as much as possible from the trade, his childhood confusion and adolescent horror turning into jaded resentment by adulthood. His work in minerals and luxury goods trading meant that while he was constantly in contact with the beneficiaries of the trade, he had little contact with the “merchandise” themselves. “I worked outside of Orion because outside of Orion, my hands were clean. Was that cowardice? Perhaps. Not as much cowardice as believing that the hundreds of thousands in chains throughout our space were not something we, as Orion, were at fault for.”
In early 2259 he was passing through a market in the regional hub of Mastocal when he came across a long, haunting column of slaves being herded to an auction. It was not a common sight within the Empire, even if slavery was; while Orion traders preferred to display their wares publicly for auction, within the Klingon Empire most trade in sentient traffic was handled in private places. “I stepped aside to watch the column of suffering pass down the muddy, rutted track to trade, the chained beings in ranks of two staggering past in muted, cowed silence as they gazed up at their captors. It was, at first glance, the usual mix of Orions of all subspecies, Rigellians, Nausicaans, all chained together, trudging in muted silence between the stalls. Then, between the ruddy green and grey faces, a few pink and brown faces, their smooth foreheads marred with smoke and dirt. Then, more, and more until as far as the eye could see along the column these short, beings walked, with expressions of fear, anger, and defeat on all their faces. I had never seen so many Terrans in one place outside of the Federation, and never in chains. One male, in stain ochre overalls, brushed into me as he passed, earning a stun-bolt jab from his slave handler. He groaned in pain and had to be carried forward by the others. By the time the whole column had passed, I thought I had counted at least 650 Terrans of all shapes and sizes.”
There were in fact 837 humans in the column – almost the entire adult population of the Congreve Settlement on Vota V-Beta.[1] On February 25th, 2259, the life of the 1145 settlers at the farming colony on the eastern continent was shattered when three Orion vessels landed in the centre of their village. James Aitcheson, the colony’s Doctor, had been visiting a patient on the fringe of the colony when they arrived, and along with three others in his party was witness to the kidnapping of the entire population of the town. “Within about four hours, they had gathered the entire population, beaming them directly into cages they had set up in the centre of the square. Those who tried to resist were shot out of hand or beaten brutally. Mendell and Rainn (two members of the party) were insistent that we go down and fight them, but Ingram Murray, who had been in Starfleet before he retired, convinced them that there was nothing to be done right now. So, we had to sit there, and watch as our family and friends were herded into these ships and taken away, never to be seen again.”
While the Orion slave ships had been picked up on the early warning sensors at Starbase 12, they had been misidentified as freighter convoy for almost sixteen hours before they were correctly marked as hostiles. The nearest destroyer task force under Commodore Moody was focused on tailing three D-6 class Battlecruisers that were chasing the damaged USS Cassel through the Vota IV system. While it has never been confirmed, it is likely that the Congreve attack and the ensuing raids on several other inhabited systems in the Vota star cluster were the first instance in which Klingon warships worked directly with Orion slave guilds on their raiding missions. By the time the Klingon squadron was forced to withdraw by the Campbelltown, Marco Polo and Hamilcar, Orion slavers from the Y’rel Guild had seized over 8500 people from six different planets in the region of the cluster. It was the largest slaving attack within Federation space since the 2220s.[2]
It was not the beginning, or even the climax of the Orion slave trade’s attacks within the Disputed Area. By Summer 2259, the newly formed Klingon Command would be engaged in a vicious and increasingly unwinnable battle to keep the peace within their area of patrol, where their enemies would expand beyond the slaving guilds to include resurgent pirate organisations, Klingon privateers and, more alarmingly, the Imperial Navy. Starfleet Command had not been prepared for it’s post-war rebuilding to be shattered by the one-two punch of escalating piracy and Klingon interference. A memorandum from May 10th from Commander James Holland of the Starfleet Planning Committee would highlight the scale of the operational issue. “We are currently unable to restore logistical capacity, convoy escort standards or border patrol regimes to anything resembling their pre-war status. The impact of escalated Orion piracy and Klingon incursions on overall policy and strategy can be understood as nothing less than a complete and irrevocable upheaval. If a disaster is to be averted, Starfleet must acknowledge and comprehend the scale of the Strategic Earthquake in the Disputed Area as soon as possible.”
The “Strategic Earthquake”, as dramatic as it was on the Federation frontier, was merely a side affect of the massive changes the Klingon Empire was undergoing. The Economic reforms – sometimes dubbed the “Klingon Industrial Revolution” that had begun during 2257 had significant ramifications across the entire Beta Quadrant. Industrial expansion in the year 2258 outpaced what growth could be measured for the entire decade before.[3] 14 new shipyards were built across the empire in 2258 alone, along with 24 industrial complexes and 30 state civilian goods foundries.[4] Without even including the immense expansion of mining operations across the Empire, as well as the agricultural growth that began on some of the fringe worlds (at a slower, if still aggressive rate), the ‘productivity turn’ had its immediate problems. The availability of labour had always been a problem for the Klingon Empire, even with the significant number of vassal species that they had conquered since they went into space. Attempts at a widespread industrial corvee in the 2240s had proven to be dramatically unsuccessful, and wary Klingon citizens already suspected that the immense industrial expansion that L’Rell was proposing could have similar consequences. “Klingon warriors do not work in dilithium mines, or duranium foundries!” scrawled an anonymous citizen of Kling on a wall in the Orion Concession, echoing the sentiments of most within the core of the Empire. Even with prison labour being directed straight into state industry and the deep mines of praxis, manpower was running short in some parts of the Empire by as early as mid-2258. While the possibility of labour-saving devices such as industrial replicators or hi-power laser mining equipment was supposedly “on the horizon” to get to that point hundreds of thousands, if not millions would need to be sent into open cast mines, asteroid pits, and orbital foundries to meet quotas, and fast.
It is unknown when exactly the mass slave imports began. While slavery in various forms was common throughout Klingon history (with, supposedly, Kahless himself having been both a debt slave and a debt slaver at different points in his life, depending on the annal you read), industrial chattel slavery was far less common. While, for many, the enslavement of those captured in battle was an acceptable punishment for dishonour, the purchasing of slaves and the hiring of slave-capturing contractors was, for a long time, a practice only performed by the dishonourable and desperate. Circumstances, however, change opinions, especially when the punishment for failing to meet production quotas was earning the ire of the Chancellor or, worse, asset forfeiture and seizure by the Imperial Government.
Slave imports, while technically illegal under the Penal Code of Year 702 were fairly common, especially for the completion of large infrastructure projects in more isolated parts of the Empire. The Klack-del-Bracht Naval Base chain, for example, had been constructed almost entirely by indentured labour brought into the empire by Orion, So’na and Yridian slave corporations across the 2230s, but these workers had all been freed when their contracts had expired. Connections with Orion slavers had long existed – mainly as a form of disappearing political undesirables or as hired guns – but larger, official contracts had never been conducted by the Great Houses. A few had been signed by minor houses, much to the chagrin of the central government, but the numbers of enslaved measured in the hundreds. The number of these smaller, short-term contracts grew across the 2240s and 50s, peaking just before the battle of the binary stars at roughly 80 – however, these were not for large numbers of people, and if one excludes contracts for the much-lauded “Orion Slave Women” the number of contracts drops to lower than 30.[5] Larger contracts had been mooted but had been turned down mainly due to the inescapable fact that they would require raiding outside of the Neutrality Area – which inevitably resulted in interception and impounding by Starfleet. The war, obviously, changed that.
The first contract, signed by house Mo’Kai on the 11th December 2258, was for the purchase of nearly 13,000 persons across a 9-month period from the Ku’lak Slaving Guild. It was an immense number – especially considering the steady decline of the Orion slave trade across the last century. While a century before in the 2150s, the availability of chattels within the Badlands had been immense, since the signing of the Federation Charter, co-ordinated campaigns by Starfleet Command had suppressed the reach of Orion raiders. Once able to raid as far as Axanar and even Mazar, Orion trader’s battles with the Starfleet of Admiral Shran had been as quick as they had been one-sided. While a second wave of raiding and slaving came with the Great Awakening in the 2220s and 30s, the force concentration within Axanar Command and the Orion Patrol crippled their freedom of action. Operation John Brown broke the back of Crimson Dryl, the largest enslaving outfit in 2237, and with the enforcement of the Orion Neutrality Area in 2246, it seemed like days of raiding across the Federation Frontier were over.
The 2256 war had changed that entirely, and behind the waves of Klingon Warships came opportunistic raiders from the Syndicate, eager to profit from lack of Starfleet defences across the entire region. Orion activity was report as far coreward as Regulus, and Decker’s ‘Seabee Squadron’ fended off several raiding parties’ attempts to enter Beta Rigel during the month before the armistice. Even with peace, Orion action remained consistent across most of the Federation’s Beta Quadrant territory. Starfleet Command’s decision to focus on protecting the main trade routes and convoys in the immediate aftermath of war, while based on the recommendations of the Merchant Marine, left the great majority of Federation colonies and outposts beyond Axanar without any protection. The attack on convoy PD-14 declared open season on federation mercantile trade and settlements, with independent raiding soaring across 2258, from 12 attacks in April to nearly 100 in December.
It’s unclear when exactly the first slave raid on a Federation settlement occurred but records available suggest that for the first two or three months, the Ku’lak focused on independent states, colonies, and outposts, wary of attacking UFP assets directly. These raids did have significant effects, however, with the Ardana raid in February (and the Starfleet mission by the USS Emmeline Pankhurst to investigate the loss of zenite convoy AZ-04) being a significant factor in the planet’s petition for associate federation membership in August.[6] The inability of Starfleet to intervene on behalf of neutral powers and protectorates merely spurred Orion and Klingon raiding onwards, with opportunistic Imperial Captains taking to privateering for personal profit.
The February 25th raid on Vota-V-Beta appears not to have been authorised by the Ku’lak guild. considering the raid was conducted by a smaller guild (most likely the Qu’shar) acting on a subcontract, this is not surprising. The major guilds had learnt not to risk isolated attacks after the destruction of Crimson Dryl – but the fact that the raiding party managed to make it to Vota-V-Beta and back without being intercepted (likely thanks to the D6 battlecruisers that made a run through Vota IV at the time) seems to have given the Orion confidence that Starfleet couldn’t stop them – at least for now.
While it is unclear whether the presence of Klingon warships in the Vota cluster was planned or not, from that point onwards the combination of Klingon ships and Orion raiders operating together was a regular sight, especially as contracts expanded to more aggressive houses like the Duras who were perfectly happy to send their ships as direct escorts into nominally Federation Space without even the pretence of being privateers or free pirates. Klingon piracy had been a near-constant presence since the end of the armistice and had been the focus of forces in the border area since then. With the combination of Klingon raiding and Orion slaving, Klingon Command’s limited forces were pushed to their absolute limit. With most of the trade protection work being managed by a plethora of pre-Constitution class vessels such as the Anton, Cardenas and Paris class, casualties mounted as Klingon and Orion vessels of far more modern design tore through escorts and picket vessels. Starships used to operating on independent patrols were forces to band together in ad-hoc squadrons, further reducing the amount of space they could cover while also increasing their vulnerability to mass destruction by a lucky D6 or D7. The level to which the security situation collapsed in the first five months of 2259 is made apparent by the intelligence report of Starfleet Intelligence Klingon Sector in May of that year, which concluded that:
“Klingon Navy, auxiliary forces and independent raiders are able to move without interdiction by all but the most proactive and, increasingly, lucky Federation Starships. Reinforcements into the region may contribute to a reversal of fortunes, but unless a change is made in the tactics and overall strategy of Klingon Command, local superiority is unlikely to be recovering in the short or medium term.”[7]
Klingon Command was now facing a crisis which seemed to have little solution. “I think it is safe to say that these are not aftershocks,” Admiral Nogura would note in a memo to Commander, Starfleet, only a few weeks after Holland’s fateful description. “We’ve got a whole new problem on our hands.”
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
As of late May 2259, Klingon Command had existed for barely 9 months. There were some who argued, with some credence, that the creation of the Command was a bad idea. Admiral Nogura, for his part, pointed out that it drew too much decision-making power away from individual captains and smaller task forces, leaving them vulnerable to being caught within the ‘decision loop’, so to speak. However, to Ch’Shukar it was clear that to restore order and match the Imperial threat, a unified strategy was necessary. Control of resources and information required a centre to operate around if it was going to succeed, and the naysayers were overruled.
Agatha Drake had been the obvious choice to take command, with her experience as a field commander in the Klingon War meaning she knew the territory well. However, despite her accredited knowledge, Drake’s command style was making management of her assets difficult. The Admiral was at heart a field commander, preferring to fly her flag from a Starship (usually the Nimitz Class USS Andrew Cunningham) instead of from a Starbase. While this would have been preferable with a smaller command, with a whole theatre to control, it created logistical and communications headaches for everyone involved. While nominally, Klingon Command and its staff were based out of Starbase 19, Drake was very rarely there, and information and situation reports had to be passed on to the USS Andrew Cunningham[8] through an increasingly wonky chain of subspace relays and long-range message torpedoes. As much as face-to-face conversations with Captains were useful, they made the work of co-ordinating a strategy across over a dozen sectors or more impossible. Drake was also no good at the game of politics that area commanders must tend with – her decision to maintain the convoy system “until further notice” invoked the collective ire of the Department of Interstellar Affairs, The Federation Merchant and Marine and the Union of Federation Commercial Interests (UFCI). While the decision was undoubtedly the correct one, Drake handled the fallout badly, refusing to ameliorate the concerns of the shipping magnates and merchant mariner unions and allowing their resentment to build. Her promises of more shipping protection and new Starbases rang as hollow to merchant skippers as the Presidios’ promises of more resources did to her, but that didn’t stop the promises being made.
In the meantime, however, the operations and logistical staff who were meant to manage the theatre remained dangerously small, as did the tools at their disposal. By March 2259 Klingon Command had no more than 44 Class I rated Starships, including only 8 vessels considered capable of matching the D7 Battlecruiser.[9] Even with the priority given to Klingon Command for replacements and upgrades, the uphill battle to bring to anything close to operating strength had barely begun. Starfleet strength had collapsed from a pre-war peak of 1773 to 960 vessels, and while the fleet yards were beginning to pick up pace rapidly, the severe losses to Class I and II Medium and Light Cruiser classes were leaving a noticeable gap, especially in patrol and anti-piracy duties.[10]
With the large-scale yards at San Francisco, Antares and Laikan focusing on the production of Capital ships like the Constitution, Kirov and Decatur, the burden of small vessel types fell onto smaller and private yards. While a few of the subcontracted yards like Vickers in Aberdeen or The Mavvalar Guild on Tellar V were experienced with building Starships, most of the smaller yards were unable to match expected production times, a problem exacerbated by the Vulcan governments’ abject refusal to build any Capital ships of any type. Even the Capella and Archer class, long-vaunted for their simplicity of construction, ran into difficulty when they were handed off to private yards so the room could be made for the Class-I Starships, much to the frustration of Starfleet Operations. There were some hopes that the Cayuga class fast explorer could be appropriated for military operations, but its small crew complement and limited defensive systems rendered that moot.
The plan, generally, could be summed up as “make do for the year”: if the Star Fleet could manage with what assets they had until 2260, the new generation of light cruisers and destroyers could be brought into action with equipment and armament several steps above their opposition. Of critical concern was the so-called “sensor gap” that allowed Klingon ships to avoid detection by even the most modern Starfleet ship. Klingon vessels simply did not leave as big sensor images or warp signatures as most other ships, with the design of their ship hulls, warp drives and reactors deliberately focused on leaving as small an electromagnetic footprint as possible. Starfleet vessels, in comparison, gave off immense electromagnetic emissions when under standard operations due to the wide-ranging collection of sensor data being collected. While in normal circumstances this would make it easier to find enemy vessels, with Klingon ships it simply meant that Starfleet Vessels were lighting themselves up for Klingon ships to avoid – or find. While operating on ‘silent running’ was an obvious solution, it left vessels blind to their enemy – more blind than most Klingon Captains were in similar circumstances, with both the Tegucigalpa and Konigsberg being lost in action with their sensors powered down.
Captain Mendez of the USS Excalibur, however, developed a more successful solution to the gap. By operating in squadrons with ships of a smaller size, as well as deploying the entire complement of shuttlecraft available in a forward screen, Mendez was able to extend the sensor range of the Excalibur fivefold, while also enhancing the ability of the sensor screen to identify targets at a longer range. With the Excalibur acting as a command ship, Mendez was able to coordinate the destroyers under his command within his squadron to target pirate formations before they could hide within systems. This tactic was successfully used for the first time near Ayirn, where the sensor net was able to detect six Orion ships from the Ell’vrok Slaving Guild lurking outside the system. The Excalibur, along with the Carrick Adams, Zheng He and John Buford was able to intercept the craft, destroying 3, and capturing two. It was a highly successful operation – the shuttlecraft were too small to be spotted by most Orion or Klingon vessels, allowing them to guide larger ships onto the target.
Other Captains began to use similar tactics, and in conjunction with convoy formations on the main space lanes, Starfleet was able to clear pirates from the Axanar – Archanis and Argelius – Acamar, routes. By the end of March, Task Force Hoyer successfully secured the Barolian trade corridor for the first time since the Battle of the Binary Stars, opening Barolia, the only open neutral port rimward of Orion, to Federation trade once again. While the “Mendez Columns”, as these formations came to be known had a significant effect in containing piracy and Klingon incursions, Starfleet’s vessel gap still hampered their ability to counter the Orion and Imperial fleets. While some solutions were found at the bottom, Starfleet Command also began to push for further changes. The arrival of Admiral Shukar on the top floor of the Presidio had been followed by a major shake-up of staff. Shukar’s influence had brought many others upstairs with him, including Admiral Heihachiro Nogura, who took over as Chief of Starfleet Operations six days after Shukar became Commander, Starfleet.
Nogura already had a reputation as a force of will before he arrived at the Presidio. A deliberate, meticulous officer, he had made a name for himself as an explorer in the Alpha Quadrant, where the rate of colonisation was much slower than in the more easily accessible Beta Quadrant. Operating far from other Starships or support facilities meant his commands had often survived thanks to a keen understanding of every part of a ship, from computer cores to atmosphere recycling. This eye for detail was one of Nogura’s most well-known traits, but with it came an almost insatiable desire to manage everything under his command. “The Grand Old Man”, as he was quickly dubbed due to his taciturn manner and paternalist attitude, was a notorious micromanager, to such a level that it often turned other officers off him. He was, however, Shukar’s ideal choice to take over Starfleet Operations. Starfleet Operations was (and still somewhat is) a massive, overburdened department, responsible for day-to-day logistical support, ship design and construction, fleet readiness, shore operations, and the Starfleet Auxiliary Fleet. Its immense size often meant that the Chief of Starfleet Operations could rarely if ever, exert any overall vision or strategy onto all of its sub-departments. Nogura would never accept that, however. Within six weeks of taking office, the Grand Old Man had already begun to rapidly streamline his new command, amalgamating several committees that dated back to the founding of Starfleet into new, structured groups, while streamlining communication channels between shipbuilders, designers and Starfleet Command itself. In between this monumental task – and his own personal patronage of future leaders like James T. Kirk and Harry Morrow – Nogura also spearheaded the rapid completion of the Advanced Sensor Redoubt (ASR) Project.
The ASR project (Which spawned the Marco Polo, Advent and Bolivar Class Starships) had been envisaged as a cure for the sensor gap as early as 2251. While the project had stagnated before the Klingon War, it received priority during the conflict and afterwards, but despite the resources, the project ran into constant walls and technological hiccups. While the first purpose-built ASR vessel (USS Marco Polo) would be launched on February 2nd, 2259, from the Tranquillity Base Fleet Yard, it would be a while before they would be available fleet-wide. Even with the conversion of half a dozen Saladin-Class to Advent-Class ASR destroyers, Starfleet Operations would not consider the project a success until late 2265. So long as the “Mendez Column” remained the best path to challenging raiding head-on, lighter vessels were needed more than expensive, still technologically spotting ASR ships.
What lighter craft did exist at the time were either too large, not manoeuvrable enough or far too small to be effective against armed pirates. The scheme to upgrade the Malachowski class to Jeffries-Type standards was increasingly falling behind, a problem exacerbated by the loss of Fleet Reserve Yard 39 to a Baryon Radiation field. The Pioneer and Capella Class cruisers, while fast and manoeuvrable enough to keep up with raiders, were simply not well armed enough to face off with Orion cruisers or Klingon warships. “What we need,” Stone commented in a memo to Admiral Ch’Shukar in early March 2259, “is a vessel of the size, shape and speed of a bird of prey or a raptor, that can follow them into Asteroid fields or planetary atmospheres. We don’t need Starships to fight the Orion: we need destroyers, and frigates, and sloops, and we need them fast.”[11] A further memo laid out the specifications for this “anti-piracy frigate”. With a weight of under 150,000 metric tons, a cruising speed of Warp 7 or higher, the ability to mount 2 phaser arrays as well as carry up to 50 marines or security personnel for landing parties or “descents” onto privateer bases.[12]
Stone knew that the time between his memo and the launch of a vessel would be months, if not years. Thankfully, others within Starfleet had been thinking along similar lines to him, Including Drake. While her specifications did not match entirely with Stone’s specifications for a ‘Type 3 Patrol Frigate’, she had a decent idea of what was needed. “We need corvettes, of the old type – something like the old Jupiter and Bozeman class pickets”, she had commented to Peter Toussaint, newly assigned to her office. A chance to stop at the Axanar Fleet yards in mid-April was readily taken by the Admiral. While Axanar’s strategic importance had declined since Garth of Izar’s famous victory, its strategic position at the heart of Federation space in the UFP’s south-eastern quadrant meant that the Fleet Yards were the closest to Klingon Command. If anywhere could solve Drakes’ problems quickly, it’d be Axanar.
Thomas Marrone, chief of the Fleet Yards, had long experience with developing Starships with limited resources and less-than-eager responses from the Presidio and the allocations committee. He, like many other engineers and fleet designers of his generation, learned his trade under Franz Joseph, the Starship designer who had worked with Jeffries to design the Hermes, Saladin and Ptolemy Class Starships. Marrone had also been key on the development of the Pioneer Class light cruiser, which had been developed as a direct alternative to the still delayed Surya/Coventry Class project.[13]
“[Marrone] looked at the specifications Drake had given him, then frowned. ‘I can give you 120,000 tons and Warp Seven, or 150,000 tons, Torpedo launchers and Warp Six.’ The Admiral asked him how long for the first option. Marrone thought for a second, then replied ‘I can give you six by the end of July, and a dozen a month after that.’” Both Drake and Toussaint were surprised by Marrone’s acceptance of the plan, and the speed with which he estimated he could go from design spec to finished product. The Axanar yard had already been experimenting with downsizing various Marvick-type engine parts to produce a smaller vessel and ironing the kinks out of such a project, to such an extent that by the time Drake got the Starfleet allocations board to approve the new “Burke Class” two weeks later, almost 90% of preliminary R&D had been completed, with the framework of the first test hull already under construction.[14]
The first Burke Class frigate, USS Martin Luther King, would be launched 668 hours after her keel was laid down – an astonishingly rapid speed of construction enabled through not just the dedication of the work crews at the Axanar fleet yards, but the simplistic nature of the Burke Class design.[15] At a mere 153 meters long, and 127 meters wide, the Burke was a substantially small vessel by Starfleet standards – while not as small as the minuscule Archer-Class Scout craft, the Burke packed a significant amount of equipment into one of the smallest hulls ever rated by Starfleet Command.[16]
Refining much of the simplicity Marrone had worked into the Pioneer Class ‘Utility Cruiser’, the Burke removed many of the scientific and research facilities that dominated most Starships, instead orienting its computer systems and sensor output towards tactical operations. Most of her internal arrangement was also sparse – she only carried a single Industrial replicator and two food synthesisers, meaning that she was tied to larger vessels or Starbases for resupply. Even if this had not been so, her limited ability to collect stellar matter through her Bussard collectors meant she needed regular fuel resupply as well. These points, however, were irrelevant – the Burke was built for speed, scouting and firepower, not for survey missions. Marrone had delivered on his Warp 7 promise and more. The Burke would have the fastest Warp acceleration and deceleration rate of any Starfleet vessel until the launch of the Tucker-Class Strike Cruiser in 2275. While her manoeuvrability at maximum warp (which some captains pushed as high as Warp 9.65) was sluggish and unpredictable, the adaption of impulse thrusters from the Magee and Cardenas-class ships meant that at sub-light she was capable of out turning even the most modern of Orion commerce raiders and Klingon birds of prey. There were other issues – her phasers tended to short out at longer ranges, and the lack of a torpedo launcher would be lamented until they were withdrawn from service in the early 2280s, but for the task at hand in the second half of 2259, they were more than adequate.
Their first combat patrol – consisting of the three Burke Class ships USS Martin Luther King, Burke and Oporto, supported by the ASR Scout USS Advent and Light Cruiser USS Etherian Alliance was a resounding success. Using adapted “Mendez Column” tactics, Captain Rodriguez managed to ‘bounce’ a joint Klingon-Orion operation between Vico-Enol and Ing. While the Two D5 Battlecruisers turned to fight, the four Orion ships scattered, heading into Ing with the three frigates in pursuit. The Orions, despite several attempts to evade and hide within the system, were easily found thanks to the high sensor output of both the Advent and the three Burke-class vessels. Unable to outrun the Starfleet vessels, all four Orion ships were captured, liberating their cargo of nearly 1800 people.
Combined with the arrival of new ASR vessels, the Pioneer Class Cruiser and larger numbers of upgraded Saladin/Hermes class Destroyers, the Burke class filled a significant equipment gap within the Klingon Command. Able to match most, if not all Orion Interceptors, Blockade runners and Sloops, as well as Birds of Prey and Raptor-Class vessels, the tactical advantage the Federation’s enemies had within the disputed area was significantly reduced in combat zones. While further upgrades to Ship and Starbase sensor arrays, along with ASR technology would reduce the huge gaps in the surveillance, Starfleet still lacked a Strategic solution to the crisis. Tactically, they could match and hold Orion and Klingon Piracy at bay, but that was not enough; to do even that much required giving ground in other areas.
Even with new weapons and tactics turning back pirate raids and border incursions, Starfleet could do not nothing to stop the march of the Imperial Banner. The fall of the Enolian Union in May 2259 underlined the effects of the Strategic Earthquake for everyone to see. The Union, a significant regional power since at least the early 19th century, had been on the decline since the mid-2140s. Their monopoly on trade through the port of Keto-Enol had been undercut by the growth of legitimate Orion trade treaties while the Union’s refusal to sign up to the first Stellar Travel Accepted Rights Treaty in 2231 left them outside of the UFP’s free trade area. This, combined with general economic stagnation as well as the increasing authoritarianism of the Union government made their downward spiral inevitable.[17]. On May 13th, elements of the Klingon 1st Fleet Group (the first of the “new model Imperial fleets” to be formed) entered Enolian space on grounds of “policing Klingon trade”. Most of the Enolian fleet was destroyed within the first 40 hours, with Klingon soldiers occupying the capital before the end of the first week. The bulk of the Union, including the trade port of Keto-Enol, was officially annexed into the Empire within eight solar days.
Starfleet intelligence had predicted the eventuality of such a collapse for at least 18 months before this; Klingon Sector reports had highlighted the structural weakness of both the Enolian government and defence force since early 2257, building off preliminary reports made during Burnham’s War when the possibility to tempt the Union in on the Federation’s side was floated by the Department of Interstellar Affairs. Drake had even placed elements of the 2nd Fleet, which operated in the area surrounding Enolian space on yellow alert in the weeks before the invasion, in expectation of the glut of refugees that would flood into Federation space after the fall. The failure of Starfleet to react or pre-empt the attack was more down to strategic paralysis than anything else. Still reacting and re-adjusting to the state of the Disputed Area and the collapse of their authority, proactive action in the way the Ch’Shukar, Drake and others wished was functionally impossible, even before Prime Directive factors were taken into account. There were barely enough Starships available to aid the Enolian exodus, let alone confront the 1st Fleet Group in a game of stellar brinksmanship. In acquiescing to, and then supporting the resurgence of slavery and piracy within the Disputed Area, the Imperial Chancellery had forced Starfleet into a corner, making them choose between protecting their assets or countering Klingon expansion.
Starfleet Command, even as it digested the contents and conclusions of the Holland Memorandum, still failed to grasp the scale of the Strategic Earthquake. The disaster at Kobax IV, where a squadron under Captain Westlake of the USS Maurice Rose broke apart and collapsed under pressure from two Orion pirate groups underlined that Starfleet was just not equipped for the sort of warfare that was taking place on the frontier. Even with better ships and more confident crews, Starfleet just simply did not have the intelligence advantage to operate correctly, and without it, its strategy was entirely reactive. Unless new sources of information were found – and fast – The Orion and Klingons would stay inside Starfleet’s decision loop forever.
“Let Us Live to Make Men Free”: The Rise of the “Botchtok Whigs”
HW “Hawkeye” Rogers was not a particularly happy person in the summer of 2259.[18] While, on paper at least, their position as Federation Ambassador in situ to the Botchtok Planetary Congress (BPC) made them the highest-ranking diplomat within Orion Space, reality meant that their office might as well have not existed. Despite its status as the official government of the Orion Colonial Association, it was well known that the congress barely functioned as anything more than a legal façade for external powers. The Syndicate and the combined guilds were the real governing force in Orion space, and even though their members and power structures ran through the institutions of the BPC, there was no real power in the Congress. The Federation had understood this as early as the mid-2160s when the farcical “Year of the Pooh-Bah” made it clear to the UFP that the Congress was little more than a joke to most Orion – at best it was a quick way to gather bribes and sinecures, and at worse a nuisance.[19]
While the office had been of limited use in the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries, since the Orion Neutrality Act most actual diplomatic negotiations within Orion had been conducted through independent ambassadors directly with the Syndicates and Guilds, cutting the diplomatic station on Rigel VIII out of the loop entirely. Hawkeye Roger’s assignment to the position itself emphasised this; despite their noticeable talents and dedication to the job, they lacked the right friends at the right time to survive a spat with William Fox. Roger’s decision to go head-to-head with the elder statesman over the question of Orion Neutrality policy during the war had been misjudged, if morally correct. The posting to Rigel VIII was a clear message: stay out of Fox’s way, and maybe a more ‘active’ position would be found.
Despite being in ‘administrative exile’, Rogers found a use for themselves. In their first year in the position, they managed to completely replace the Diplomatic Corp’s cultural assessment of Orion – a document that had last been updated in 2231. When they weren’t rewriting official documents, Rogers ingratiated themselves with the ‘Liberal’ ends of Orion high society, providing a hub within the court politics of the merchant families for the progressives within the ruling elite. It was he who gave this group its eponymous nickname, first referring to the group as the “Botchtok Whigs” in a memorandum in Late 2258, comparing them to the liberal aristocrats of Earth’s Old Britain. While the English Whigs’ high moralism and dubious attitudes towards working-class representation and true egalitarians may have left much to be desired, they were the perfect analogy for the ‘liberal’ mercantile elite that Rogers interacted with. Despite these connections, Rogers was constantly frustrated in his work to help the lesser privileged of the Orion population, especially those who wished to seek asylum within the UFP – even beyond Prime Directive limitations, the Commission for Interstellar Relations (CIR) was incredibly hesitant to condone any action that may upset the Syndicates, especially when Starfleet remained weak in the region. Even as Orion slave ships terrorised Federation worlds, fears of alienating the only real ‘neutral’ power trumped the basic instinct to improve lives across the quadrant. Rogers did what they could, and found help with many of the Botchtok Whigs, who helped him pass aid onto many as well as provide routes of escape from debt slavery, indenture, and wage-servitude.
Through these channels, Rogers first came to know N’gairrez, mainly as a middleman for his associates who could help direct funds or individuals to where they wanted to be, both with legal and semi-legal means. N’gairrez’s politics, as previously mentioned, aligned significantly with that of the Botchtok Whigs and their desire for what they called “Triumphalist reform”, pushing for the abolition of slavery, the readjustment of the political settlement away from virtual representation and the severe crippling of the Syndicate’s political powers. These were not popular ideas, but the Whigs were men of standing, wealth and influence, and despite their so-called ‘revolutionary’ ideas, they were not challenged with threats of violence or imprisonment. Their politics were not considered a threat to public order or profit margins, even if its principles were, in theory. Syndicate officials were more concerned with the ‘meddling’ of people like Rogers, who brought dangerous ideas like full egalitarianism, minority protections and work-owned businesses into Orion society, and the Federation Diplomat was aware that he was under frequent observation by several of the guilds. It didn’t stop him from accepting invitations to soirees and recitals where he could debate liberalisation, written constitutionalism, and political economy with the Whigs.
They weren’t close, though. As such, Rogers was surprised when N’gairrez walked into his office. Usually, the only reason anyone would see them directly would be to obtain a S.T.A.R permit, required for mercantile trade within the Federation Treaty Zone. Whatever they expected, a list of six Federation outposts and colonies with stardates next to them was not it. N’gairrez explained, eventually, that these were the finalised targets for the Ku’lak guild’s next sweep of raids, along with the estimated number of “cargo” to be gathered and ships being deployed, along with their marshalling point and post-raid rendezvous co-ordinates. It was shocking, to say the least, and even if Rogers doubted its authenticity, he knew he had to pass it on.
The Starfleet Intelligence attaché, Commander TK Robson, quickly had the information delivered to Admiral Drake, who viewed the information with some scepticism. It was, however, the closest thing Klingon Command had to accurate intelligence in the area. SI’s Klingon Group had been practically eliminated during the Klingon War and was in 2259 entirely reliant on receiving reports from ‘patriotic’ merchant traders and extremely unreliable paid informants. The longstanding use of the “Chain Regulus” system of subspace transmitters for message interception, much relied upon for intercepting and tracking Klingon movements, was nowhere near as reliable or accurate as SI liked to believe it was, with time-delays as long as 26 days meaning that much of the information it gathered was practically useless: even the civilian subspace relays systems in the triangle (maintained by the Baker Corporation and leased for Star Fleet usage at a high markup) had quicker response times.[20] If N’gairrez’s information was right, however, Klingon Command could counter operations in real-time, instead of chasing shadows across the neutral zone.
The Advent Class ASR Scout USS Zanzibar and its escort USS Osathia Zh'shaqith were sent to confirm the report, plotting a course to the rim of the Triple Rollover system, arriving on June 1st. Having sat in the Oort Cloud for three days with nothing to report, her captain was beginning to suspect that no Orion ships were coming when suddenly the long-range sensors picked up one, then two, then nearly a dozen warp signatures entering the system. The 14 Orion ships remained on station over the 2nd planet for approximately 2 hours - long enough for the raiders to be briefed, and for the Zanzibar to isolate the individual warp signatures of each vessel. The confirmation reached Commodore Mendez approximately 6 hours later aboard the Excalibur. Task Force Mendez leapt into action immediately, the 14 Starships (1 Constitution, 2 Loknar, 2 Pioneer, 1 Avenger, 2 Saladin, 1 Advent and 5 Burke) beginning a long sweep across the targeted systems as a mass formation.
The first Orion group was intercepted on the 2nd at 14:55 Fleet time approximately 2.5 AUs from its target, the Federation Science Outpost on Turbulence III, turning it back with ease. Four more groups turned from their targets at the mere sight of the Task Force but remained unable to escape from the high war acceleration rates of the Starfleet vessels. A detachment of 1 Loknar and 3 Burke Class ships caught the last raiding party just as they dropped out of warp over the independent colony of Voltaire. Choosing to fight, all three Orion raiders were lost with all hands. By the end of day on June 9th, Task Force Mendez had allotted 4 ships destroyed and 6 captured. None of the Orion raiders had reached their targets intact.
It was a spectacular coup, for Mendez, Drake and SI alike. A further interview with N’gairrez by Robson on the 14th revealed that N’gairrez was merely one of a large network of prominent merchants who were ready and eager to gather information on behalf of Starfleet and against the Syndicate. They included several prominent Botchtok Whigs and, to the surprise of Rogers and Robson, Melum of Rigel III, deputy chairman of the Crimson Dryl Guild and member of the Syndicate’s presiding council. The fact that a senior member of one of the largest slaving guilds was willing to pass on information to Starfleet was suspicious but considering that Melum had been the source of the Ku’lak raid scoop, such suspicion was of little use.
One question remained for Rogers and Robson: why? Aiding Starfleet’s interception and possible destruction of raiding vessels put those involved at major risk: it meant violation of guild rights and regulations for sensible practice, as well as charges of espionage and treason by the Botchok Congress. It could mean death either way, whether through legal means of execution or murder by vengeful guilds. For certain members, the undermining of the slaving guilds gave them obvious advantages increasing their influence. Others rightly saw the growing resurgent power of the slaving guilds as a threat to their legitimate trading concerns, especially within Federation space. But for those like N’gairrez and Melum, they were putting a great on the line in supplying Starfleet with information: their careers, their income, their family ties and even their lives to aid a foreign power.
Roger’s report readily admits he expected to be told about some vengeful feud, or debt. He did not expect N’gairrez to reach into his pocket and place a coin-size medallion on the table. The medallion, cast in gold, showed an Orion man prostrate on his knees looking upwards in the instantly recognisable pose of the Wedgewood medallion, with the words “Are we not individuals, and siblings?” written in Orion script. N’gairrez explained that it was the symbol of the Orion Anti-Slavery Society, of which he and several others were a member. Said society was proscribed as being “anti-Syndicate” for its political message: the total abolition of all kinds of slavery, indenture, ancestral bondage and debt peonage across Orion space. It was not a movement one joined without a whole-hearted belief in its politics, and a willingness to die for them: Rogers had seen what had happened when a meeting of the society had been raided by Ku’lak security in January 2258 and had watched as society members were beaten to death in the street for daring to oppose the Syndicate. The Syndicate had a lot to fear from antislavery advocates: it believed that the entire Orion economy could not survive the abolition of all kinds of unfree labour. So much, from domestic servitude to law enforcement to raw material extraction, was dependent on it, that it was unimaginable to many that Orion society could survive without it. Even so, the guilds knew that fringe groups that did abolish it had managed to thrive. It was important to make sure that dream, however, remained so, and never became a reality, with whatever means were deemed necessary.
The demand for slaves from the Klingon empire was putting even more pressure on Orion debt peonage, and even beyond court-based enslavement, ‘body parties’ would regularly make their way through the underworld of Orion cities to gather hundreds at a time for sale. If it wasn’t stopped, N’gairrez argued, then the slaving guilds would cement their power for another century, with the Klingons to support them both in the disputed area and on Orion itself. Starfleet could make sure of that. Many of the others were just as willing to put their lives on the line to make slavery unviable within Orion space and had been for a long time, but the opportunity had not presented itself until now.
This was enough for Robson. Further pieces of information came thick and fast through message drops, coded memos and face-to-face meetings with Robson’s juniors, or even with Rogers themselves at a diplomatic function in July. It came from disparate sources; stolen or copied documentation, shipping notices, bribed officials at transfer stations or even from a co-operative of nucleonic fuel carriers operating out of Qualf who had been to pay out a debtor’s bond as resupply vessels for Ell’vrok raiding groups. Robson’s small staff soon found themselves overworked as information poured in rapidly across May and June from what SI soon dubbed “Unit D”. By the second week of June, though, Robson’s team had managed to completely turn around the intelligence picture in the disputed zone. They could now accurately chart the area of operations for each slaving guild, the rough strengths of their forces, and even place the operating areas of the 3 Imperial Fleet Groups facing Klingon Command. This was nowhere close to the near-total intelligence network that would culminate in near-total theatre command in the mid-2270s, but it was still a game changer for Drake and her subordinates. Even if they could not track Klingon battlegroups or Orion raiding parties in real-time, the interception rate jumped from a paltry 34% to nearly 80% by the end of June. Things appeared to be turning around for Starfleet.
However, Robson’s team noticed a serious change in Klingon fleet deployments. Traditional raiding tactics had continued even if the older ship classes had been replaced with newer types like the D-6A and B and new upgrades to the D7. Across May and into June, however, the number of individual raids had dropped off: even if the rate of raiding was maintained by larger formations, the number of Klingon vessels operating directly along the Federation border seemed to be dropping. As much as this was good news for the Merchant Service, it troubled Starfleet Intelligence greatly. Placements along the border made it easy to discern objectives, whether they were direct raids, convoy escorts or Fleets-in-being. The increasing trend toward operating on the edge of the Triangle – the corridor of unclaimed space between the UFP, Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire – made it impossible to discern Klingon intentions, simply because there were so many possible paths of action available to them. Unless more, clearly information could be found, that question could never be answered.
Rogers and N’gairrez were, supposedly, having dinner together when the critical message arrived on June 20th. They were in their usual haunt - an above-par restaurant around the corner from the Federation mission - when a waiter handed the Orion merchant a message from his colleague Porellun, a precious goods trader. The message, like all of Unit D’s, was in the cryptic and semi-nonsensical code they developed and read “Khitomer Traders taking stock at 4th atoll near Cadiz on 24th.” Supposedly, the moment the Orion finished reading the message, both he and Rogers leapt to their feet and raced back to the embassy without even paying the bill. The message, when decrypted, makes their actions understandable: Porellun had spotted 24 Klingon Warships in orbit over the 4th moon of system YR-164: the inhabited planet Ellec-vell, home to the last remaining independent government of the Suliban people, and only 1.2 lightyears from the Federation Outpost on Gibraltar: the furthest outpost within the Triangle.[21]
Rogers and Ngairrez both knew what a Klingon Battlegroup orbiting Ellec-vell meant. Beyond the Tactical concerns created by a fleet operating on that side of the Triangle (and so close to Gibraltar outpost), it confirmed their worst fears about Klingon motives within the disputed area. Beyond aiding and abetting piracy and sentient trafficking, the Klingon Empire was now attempting the annexation of the Suliban: the most vulnerable population in the entire Beta Quadrant and doing so right under Starfleet’s noses.
[1] Vota V-Beta was the second planet colonised within the Vota V system, one of the Seven Star systems of the mineral rich Vota Star Cluster. First colonised in the early 2220s, it is one of the Federation’s largest sources of Trellium-D.
[2] Walter Grayson, Purple Gold: A History of the Dilithium Belt (New York: Beta Quadrant Histories, 2308)
[3] Production estimates, 2240-2255, (The Imperial Chancellery, Kling, Qo’NoS)
[4] Industrial Annals of the 883rd Year of Kahless, (The Imperial Chancellery, Kling, Qo’NoS)
[5] Despite the longstanding myths around Orion Slave Girls and Pheromones, there is little proof to the idea that either Orion society is run by these “Slave women”. Science has proved that the controlling pheromones do exist, but that their potency and powers of manipulation are much more limited than certain pieces of media suggest.
[6] The difficult strategic situation in 2259 somewhat explains why Ardana was later admitted into the UFP without a full investigation of the planet’s society. Captain Kirk’s infamous 2269 report into the sentient rights violations and illegal caste systems would result in the resignation of 6 Diplomatic Corps officials and an inquiry that would send 3 of them to prison.
[7] Starfleet Intelligence Report KS-1470.3, Starfleet Intelligence Archives (Almeida, San Francisco)
[8] The Cunningham had, early in its career, served as the Admiral Ch’Shukar’s flagship.
[9] These vessels were: Excalibur, Constellation, Kirov, Ho Chi Minh, Frederick Douglass, River Plate, Indefatigable and Marco Polo. The Frederick Douglass and the River Plate, while assigned to 2nd Fleet, were undergoing deep space trials and thus not manned or fitted for full duty until July 2259.
[10] Starfleet’s Cruiser strength of 217 in 2256 was reduced to a mere 90 by 2258, which included in its number 33 obsolete Pre-Constitution types.
[11] Memo from Captain Stone (Starfleet Defensive Operations, London) to Admiral Ryn Ch’Shukar (Starfleet Command, San Francisco), February 11th 2259.
[12] Captain Stone’s use of Old British naval terminology for landing parties was not lost on Admiral Ch’Shukar.
[13] While Seven Surya/Coventry Class Starships would be launched, the modifications made to one of them (USS Miranda) would evolve into the Miranda Class Heavy Frigate from 2265 onwards.
[14] R. L. Rev glov Varthall, The Franz Joseph Gang: The Story of The Starfleet Design School (Starfleet Press, San Francisco, 2305)
[15] The Burke herself would not launch first as Marrone retained her in the yards for further tests and modifications to the class. She would eventually launch two weeks later.
[16] ‘Rated Vessels’ range from Class I Starships down to Class VII Frigates – smaller vessels, such as the Archer Class scouts, are not considered ‘rated’, and thus counted in official fleet strength rosters.
[17] The First STAR Treaty was signed by the UFP, Botchok Planetary Congress, Turnstile, The Association of Free Worlds, Mantiev Colonial Association as well as over 80 minor states and planetary powers. It remains the largest treaty in modern Galactic history, rivalled only by the Babel Agreement on the Articles of Interstellar Law.
[18] HW was, in fact, Roger’s birthname: Their parents argued for so long about whether their name would be Hilda or Wendy that their grandfather simply told the doctors to write HW.
[19] The “Year of the Pooh-Bah” refers to a series of incidents where attempted reforms to the BPC resulted in a series of more and more convoluted political ministers, from the Minister of Insurance Claims down to the Minister for Simplifying government. When the Federation Ambassador made a joke about whether congress planned to name a Pooh-Bah, it resulted in the formation of a Commission for the Nomination of a Pooh-bah and some research into the position. For more, see Memory Beta: A History of the Botchok Planetary Congress (Memory Beta, 2270)
[20] The Baker Corporation, incidentally, while originally of no relation to the Baker family of the Association of Outer Free Worlds, was bought by Eugene Baker in 2252.
[21] Gibraltar was also, until the foundations were laid on Cestus III in 2265, the furthest Federation Outpost from Earth.