The PowWow

This goes along with the previous posting for my Star Trek character. This is about the ships she's commanded that go along with her story. Again, let me know if you like them.

USS Pueblo

Nebula Class

Service History:

The Nebula Class USS Pueblo was Captain T'Manda Letant's first command after being promoted to Captain. She was an older hull, having seen service towards the end of the Dominion War, but regular upgrade programs ensured she was still very much fit for service in 2409. While under command of Captain Letant, she participated in several operations against the Borg and the Tal Shiar, the most notable of which brought Hakeev to justice for his crimes against the Romulan people and other sentient life and exposed the Iconians' role in the destruction of Romulus.

After this campaign, Pueblo was chosen to host experiments with adapting Borg technology to Federation vessels to assist in the fight against an increasingly aggressive Collective. Pueblo received Borg enhancements to weapons, propulsion, deflectors, navigation, defensive systems, and numerous other systems. The only way Starfleet engineers could have incorporated more Borg tech on the Pueblo would have been to have the Borg assimilate her themselves.

Pueblo underwent several trials putting all of her new Borg enhanced systems through their paces. These trials showed much promise, but several issues arose with power fluctuations during trials.

While performing stress tests in the Badlands region of space, a subspace anomaly opened nearby. T'Manda brought the Pueblo in to investigate when a Terran Empire ship, their version of the Sovereign class assault cruiser, emerged from the rift and began firing on the Pueblo. The captain of the enemy vessel then demanded the immediate surrender of the Pueblo, which T'Manda answered by ordering a full spread of the Borg enhanced weapons at the Terran ship. Pueblo fought the enemy ship, identified as the ISS Tirpitz, to a standstill, but the power fluctuations found during previous tests began to arise during the battle and Pueblo started losing multiple systems due to overload.

The damage caused to Tirpitz disabled her, but the damage Pueblo took in the process combined with the multiple systems failures left her much worse off than her adversary. The crews of both ships began frantically making repairs trying to restore vital systems, but an analysis conducted by Pueblo's tactical officer determined that Tirpitz would have weapons restored before Pueblo could get main power and shields back online.

T'Manda was faced with a dilemma. Pueblo would not be operational before the Terrans got their weapons back online, and T'Manda had no doubt that they would destroy her the second they restored power. Simply abandoning ship was not an option either as that would result in her and her crew either being killed in their escape pods, or worse, captured and taken back to the Mirror Universe to be subjected to unspeakable horrors. T'Manda chose a third option. She would lead a boarding action and attempt to capture the Terran ship before they could restore their systems and destroy Pueblo. T'Manda asked for volunteers and ordered the remaining crew to abandon ship. She then took the Pueblo's entire complement of shuttle craft and conducted a boarding operation on the ISS Tirpitz.

Once onboard, Pueblo's boarding parties moved quickly and captured main engineering cutting power to the rest of the ship. Once main engineering was secured, and most of the Terran crew were isolated in non vital areas of the ship, T'Manda led an assault team to secure the bridge. There she faced the Terran captain and the few officers on his bridge crew still loyal to him. He refused T'Manda's offer to surrender peacefully choosing a fight to the death instead which T'Manda obliged.

With Tirpitz now secured, T'Manda took command of the ship, recovered her crew still in escape pods, and towed the disabled Pueblo to Deep Space Nine for temporary repairs. Pueblo had her systems restored enough to allow her to travel to a Federation shipyard for more extensive repairs. The decision was then made to remove most of the Borg technology until issues with the power fluctuations could be permanently solved.

T'Manda stepped down as the commanding officer of the USS Pueblo afterwards to take command of the ISS Tirpitz and lead a mission into the Mirror Universe to gather reconnaissance on the Terran Empire's activities and attempt to discover their plans for the Federation. However, she would not return to command the Pueblo upon completion of that mission, having instead been selected to lead the joint project that resulted in the USS Long Beach.

ISS Tirpitz

Sovereign Class Star Cruiser

Service History:

The ISS Tirpitz was first encountered the Badlands region of space by Captain T'Manda Letant of the USS Pueblo. While conducting stress tests on Borg enhanced systems, a subspace distortion formed nearby and the Tirpitz emerged launching an attack on the Pueblo which resulted in a protracted engagement that saw both ships disabled. Captain Letant, realizing that the Terrans would have their ship's weapons restored before the Pueblo's crew could restore main power made the decision to conduct a boarding operation to capture the Tirpitz. Her boarding operation was successful and the ship was captured before a self destruct could be activated. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask), T'Manda was forced to kill Tirpitz's captain in the process.

From what can be gathered from the ship's computers and her captain's personal logs, Tirpitz's crew created the rift that brought her into this reality. Captain Franklin Gordon, her former commander, was apparently seeking a means of traveling to the prime universe to capture Federation technology and obtain intelligence on the Federation's strengths and weaknesses in a bid to gain favor with the Terran Emperor. Prior to Tirpitz's incursion, she was part of a brutal campaign to crack down on rebel groups in the Bajoran sector.

Captain Gordon himself was a particularly sadistic individual who seemed to enjoy torturing members of his own crew even more than he did his enemies. He was so feared and hated by the members of his own crew that many of them broke out into celebration once word reached them that he had been killed.

After Tirpitz was captured, her former crew transferred to a Federation detention facility, and repairs were conducted, she was pressed into service with Starfleet with Captain Letant as her commanding officer. Tirpitz was ordered back into the Mirror Universe to conduct reconnaissance on the Terran Empire's activities and attempt to discover their plans for the Federation. She operated on the other side gathering vital intelligence on Terran Empire tactics, logistics, and battle plans and returned to the prime universe after over a month of continuous operations.

The intelligence gathered by Tirpitz greatly assisted the Federation in preparing for large scale combat with the Terran Empire, and upon her return, the decision was made by Starfleet Command to transfer her to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers so her technology and combat capabilities could be further studied while Captain Letant was transferred to the program that would eventually result in the USS Long Beach.

USS Long Beach

Intrepid Class

Service History:

The Intrepid Class USS Long Beach began life as the USS Viking. She participated in several fleet actions during the Dominion War, and during the Battle of Cardassia Prime, she was severely damaged and became disabled. She was towed to a repair facility where her warp drive was repaired enough to allow her to return to a Federation shipyard for more extensive repairs. She was placed in an ever growing queue of ships requiring repairs, and after the first of the new Lamarr class science vessels came online, she was decommissioned and placed into mothballs at a Federation storage facility.

In 2410, a joint project between the Federation and the Romulan Republic began with the aim of combining Romulan and Federation technology into a hybrid design. Captain T'Manda Letant having recently stepped down from command of the USS Pueblo, was chosen to lead the project. Her experience with commanding the Pueblo, itself a hybrid of Federation and Borg technology, as well as her Romulan heritage and past experience with Romulan Warbirds made her the perfect candidate to lead the project. After reviewing the list of ships being stored in the mothball fleet, she chose the Viking as the platform for the project.

The Viking had been stripped of most of her technology during its time in the mothball facility, but this worked to the project's benefit as it provided a nearly blank canvas to work from. Engineers from Starfleet and the Republic Navy got to work, and, after several months of hard work, Viking's new identity began to take shape.

She retained what made her a distinctly Starfleet vessel but was now augmented by Romulan tech everywhere it was possible to do so. Installing a Romulan singularity drive was deemed too risky, so the standard warp core and engineering configuration found on Intrepid class ships was retained as well as the astrometric and science facilities. Her sensors, shield generators, impulse drives, and deflector are all Romulan designs adapted to her Starfleet physiology, but where she really stands apart is her weapon suite. She now sports a lethal combination of experimental Romulan heavy plasma torpedo launchers and plasma beam arrays. She also has limited cloaking capabilities that provide her with a useful edge in any tactical situation.

Upon the successful completion of trials, Viking was officially brought back online, but with her new identity as a hybrid design, the decision was made to re-christen her. In a ceremony with officials from both the Federation and the Romulan Republic present, Viking was rechristened as USS Long Beach in honor of the US Navy guided missile cruiser from Earth's 20th century, and Captain Letant was chosen to be her commanding officer.

USS Long Beach is much loved by her crew (Captain Letant herself has repeatedly turned down assignments to more modern vessels), and with Captain Letant in command, she has demonstrated an ability to punch well above her weight in combat. She has served with distinction in the Voth campaign, the Iconian War, the Klingon Civil War, the Hurq campaign, and the recent campaigns against the Borg, Aetherians, and the Chimerans.