Earth Spacedock

USS Ra Cailum

"Captain's Log, USS Ra-Cailum, stardate 87359.3: the Ra-Cailum has completed a three month refit following the Iconian War, and I'm finally getting her out of the dock. I'm pleased to report that all hands are eager to get the hell back into deep space, and my chief engineer's been wanting to test some new convoluted warp drive system. If my ship explodes… I blame her."

The Iconian War was over. Peace had been won, but it had been a hard battle.

The core ship of that fight, the USS Ra Cailum, had just finished its repairs and refits.

And now it was preparing to set out again.

"I'm telling you, we just need to get back to building starbases. No more hero bullshit, Takeshi. Simple, boring construction duty. The LAST time we pulled hero bullshit, our ship got fucked."

"Yeah, boring is good. VERY good."

Ronald Pinkerton downed a large amount of what had been called a 'warrior's drink', much to Takeshi Yamato's discomfort. "By the way, did you get your present?"

"I did, yeah," Takeshi replied. "Still prefer the Pulsewave Rifle, I think it's MACO issue, but the shotgun will certainly help when I can't use the pulsewave." He paused for a bit. "Just need to have Sonja fit it with a grenade launcher to match the Pulsewave."

His commander shook his head. "That is the most stupid thing I've heard come out of your mouth. The POINT of a shotgun is for close-in. Adding a grenade launcher makes it harder to use that way, not to mention the M1897 wasn't designed for it."

Before the fight could begin, the PA pinged. "Captain Asshole, Captain Asshole, please report to the bridge."

"Duty calls," Takeshi said with a chuckle, as both officers stepped into the turbolift, which quickly rose up towards the bridge.

When the doors opened onto the bridge, Takeshi's wife, Luna, turned and spotted them. "Captain on deck!" she announced.

Ron just waved them off as he sat down "Status?"

"Everything's set up," Sonja stated on the comm. "That fancy wormhole drive's been installed without blowing anything up. Once we warp out to Pluto we can begin the first test."

"Larcei's safely tucked in in her quarters," Luna added. "Still can't believe she managed to pout her way onto the ship…"

"She is NOT staying."

"Oh, come on, Ron."

"Od-dee-see. Spell it for me. It's, uh, 39 years ago, involved the Jem'Hadar and a KAMIKAZE RUN?!"

THAT was the nail in the coffin for the families-on-starships program. The others were the battle of Wolf 359 and the destruction of the Enterprise-D, the Yamato and his mother's insistence to END that foolishness before it got worse.

"You know she's just going to pout again when you want her to leave, Ron," Takeshi remarked. "And I don't care how intense your glare is, or how resistant you are to other glares - from what I've seen, that pout is the ONE thing that always causes you to crumble."

"I'll just beam her back to Earth. From the bridge."

"And cause her to puke?"

"She was one! Cassie, back me up here!"

The ship's AI (and Ron's girlfriend, which confused Takeshi to the point of time travel) refused to get involved. "Sir, can we just leave spacedock and do this test?"

"Fine, fine. SONJA!"

"What's up, boss?"

"Fire up that matter/antimatter reaction! We're leaving port!"

"You got it, boss! Mitod, Matt, new girl, GET MOVING!"

"Right!" Matthew 'Matt' Williams replied, working on his console to get the core going.

The Orion kicked the twintailed brunette straight out of the Academy in the head to get her moving. "Sheesh, no need to get violent!"

"Get moving, Makinami!"

The glasses-wearing girl bent over backwards, sloppily saluting the Orion engineer before running off, priming the ports. "Matter/antimatter reaction at 1/1! And the smell of fresh paint on the injector ports is LOVELY!"

Sonja stared at the new girl, eyebrow raised. "We're good, boss. Riza, please do your thing."

Riza Pinkerton smirked. "Right. Full impulse, right out of the gate!"

Takeshi strapped in. Full impulse was NOT something done in spacedock - it was against regs to do anything beyond maneuvering thrusters - but Riza did it anyway.

The Odyssey-Class starship shot out of the barely repaired station, causing the dockworkers to scream at them.

"Damn bitch! One of these days she's going to kill EVERYONE on that ship!"

Quinn smiled. "We need people like them, Edward. You just don't like them because Ron doesn't respect you."

"He doesn't respect anyone of our rank," Admiral Hayate Yagami of Starfleet Technical Intelligence Group Spec Ops Section 6 replied. "Jellico here is the only one who believes respect has to be given to him on a silver platter - the rest of us just acknowledge Ron's crassness and move on."

"He respects us, Yagami. But only if we prove worthy of it. He's destined for great things. Like Kirk, Picard and all the rest. He just doesn't want to do it."

Hayate smiled knowingly. "No. No, he does not."

Nanoha Takamachi watched as the Ra Cailum shot towards them. Her trainees began to panic. "He wouldn't!"

Her face was flat as glass. "Yes. He would."

The ship inverted, passing over the hull of the USS Musashi with only meters to spare, then returned to the regular orientation.

"So, how many, Nano?"

"I'll have to take a headcount, Ron! Thanks!"

The Ra Cailum then jumped straight to warp. "The Academy suffered when that man left."

"Suffered? The man's insane!"

"Insanity is what Starfleet does. He's from the old school, kiddies. Take a good look. THAT is how Starfleet officers from the 23rd Century were like. And it's a damn shame that he's not teaching anymore."

USS Ra Cailum

"So, head count, please. All shuttles and fighters?"

"Shuttles and fighters all properly stowed and secured," Takeshi replied.

"Ok, SIF and IDF?"

"100% and ready for wormhole travel."

Ron sighed. "This was a bad idea. Why the hell are they using an Oddy for this? A Connie or something smaller would be perfect, not a superdreadnought."

"Officially, because they want to see what would happen if a subspace efficient ship like the Odyssey-Class entered a semi-stable artificial wormhole," Takeshi replied. "Unofficially? Our least favorite Admiral."

"Fucking Jellico. Sonja, status on the secondary dilithium chamber."

"Operational. New girl actually knows what she's doing!"

"Hook it into the stream. It's time to get this over with. A few test flights and a trip back to Earth to DROP OFF MY NIECE."

"Right," Sonja replied. After a moment, she said, "Secondary chamber is hooked up and ready to go."

"Corpy, the button please."

"My name's not-" The andorian protested.

"Just push the damn button."

The Andorian grumbled, before activating the switch, and then hitting the button hard.

"HERE WE GO!" The Ra Cailum streaked into warp speed, a flash on the galactic horizon as she entered warp speed.

"Wormhole in 20 seconds. From all reports from the Enterprise, this won't be fun."

"Fun for us! All hands, this is the Captain: brace for fuckiness!"

Takeshi and Luna looked at their commander and brother(in-law). "…Is that even a word?"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Do I care?"

Soon, the wormhole effect triggered, as the ship entered an artificially-generated wormhole.

"Captain, there's something wrong with the wormhole. It's nothing like the one the 1701 ran into!"

"As in?"

"MORE unstable! We need to shut the drive down! NOW!"

Ron looked at Riza. "Shut it down!"

"I can't!"

"SONJA!"

"Trying!"

The wormhole glowed brighter and brighter. "Oh, why do I get unhappy feelings from this?"

"Q?"

Ron looked thoughtful for a second. "FUCKING Q, I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS!"

There was a bright flash of light, and then darkness.

Takeshi Yamato: And here we go again.

First up, we had a few problems arise in the old version of this story, and so the only thing we could do was restart.

Ron the True Fan: Yes, well, shit happens. Gives us a chance to do things anew. And guess what? While we were writing these, the ficmaster was putting up our completed original fic's chapters! Gave us time to write these. Right, Jorn?

117Jorn: Exactly. This one we promise will be longer, feature more, and have everything the last one lacked.

Redemption's Avenger: Including me! Suprise!

Ron the True Fan: Here we go, boys and girls. Take us to warp!

Ja Ne!