265,000 words. 154 Stories.
That’s how many you’ve written in the last two weeks. Phase 2 always sees a dip from the activity of the first, frantic, enthusiastic phase of a Fleet Action, but let’s not kid ourselves. Not only is this still a tremendous achievement – it’s more words (60,000 more words) than you all wrote in Phase 2 of last year’s insanely successful Nightfall Fleet Action. Can you keep this up to the end? I know you can. After all, at the time of writing, Crossroads – with its twisty turns, alternate realities, doppelgangers wearing our friends’ faces, and fractured multiverse that might just shatter – has seen a total of 717,000 words.
12 days left. Nightfall saw a total of 880,000 words published. Can we best that? Or, even more…
Can we hit 1 million?
To keep you enthusiastic, to remind you what we’re doing, what’s at stake, how far these stories are going, let’s have a quick look back at the adventures of the Fourth Fleet this past fortnight…
Phase 2
Bravo Fleet Senior Staff
Canopus Squadron
With Canopus and Canopean Dream coming face-to-face, it was time for the Tikva’s to come face-to-face as well. The meeting ends with news that the Canopean Dream’s sister ship, Pegasus Rider, is en route with possible Breen pursuers chasing – enough to destroy the Canopean Dream and Pegasus Rider with ease, but with Canopus, a far more lopsided affair in the opposite direction. Meanwhile Atlantis makes good time across the Federation to Canopus’ last known location, with no interference from anyone as they do. Though as they continue, evidence that the Loom are out there presents itself as Atlantis nears its destination.
USS Endeavour
Captain Valance’s decision to declare herself Commander Cortez’s cha’DIch in her murder trial, her cultural Klingon legal representative, proves to do more than move the needle in court when ‘Chancellor’ Toral reaches out to her and tells the truth: that he is indeed a doppelganger from another universe. Now aligned, Endeavour tries to resolve the trial and free Cortez without plunging the Klingon Empire into a leadership crisis, or further endangering the multiverse. That last becomes more challenging when the Loom manifest, nearly erasing the investigating officers who make one more discovery: that the real Chancellor Toral’s attempted theft of the Boreth time crystals is why the Displacement is happening at all. And without stabilising the crystals, the phenomenon could happen again.
Odyssey Squadron
The toll of the revelation of who is commanding the nu-Odyssey has reached their prime reality counterparts. Cadet Alfie McCallister-Reyas, his fiancé and cadet comrades now find themselves on the edge of having to come to terms with what may happen in their future and what may happen if they do not step up and stop the nu-Odyssey from destroying the Borg. The emotional burden is real and time is ticking against them. Their words of diplomacy may make a difference, if not, there’s nothing that can stand in the way of Captain Alfie McCallister-Reyas-Hart from attacking the Borg in the past to save his alternate future.
Task Force 17
USS Crazy Horse
After the Red Barons escaped the compliance wing, the Crazy Horse slowly uncovers the terrifying nature of this gilded reality, where a Dyson Lattice masks a Borg-controlled universe. The crew realizes that the missing members are optimized to serve this hive, Zora is at earth, while Zera is serving the hive as the tactical mastermind hunting their ship. While seeking for more answers, the crew retreats to the McAllister Nebula, there they dock with Station 47, a gritty sanctuary for those that are considered a chaos element to the hive that need correction. There, the crew learns that there is a Tribute system, a cold administrative system to uphold the peace where Vassal States provide resources to keep them from being totally assimilated into this peace utopia the Borg provides.
USS Horizon
The USS Horizon rescued Rebecca and Sora from the war-torn alternate reality, but the mission grows more dangerous as the Loom closes in and the crew suffer memory echoes from lives they never lived. Tracking down Jorik Traven, another displaced, who was tempted to alter history to correct this reality, forced the crew to confront what home really meant. In the final crisis, Li-Sareth chose to return to her own broken universe rather than escape it into the prime universe, though it didn’t quite go as planned and instead chose to sacrifice herself to save her new friends on the Horizon. Rebecca, Jorik and Sora all made it back to the Prime Universe, but at what cost. They return changed and the crew mourn the loss of Li-Sareth who recognised that home is something people choose and protect, not where you reside.
Task Force 21
USS Glendale
After a failed recommissioning launch in January, USS Glendale remains in drydock at Starbase Bravo. After a personnel restructuring at the ship yards where she was relaunched, the former deputy director is assigned as the commanding officer to oversee her repairs. Repairs are scheduled to take another seven months. Unknown to the new captain, her launch schedule is moved up to the following week so that she can assist in ferrying Displaced personnel to Starbase 80.
USS Shadow
As the Shadow’s officers encounter the implants not as rumor, but as medical routine, the question shifts to lineage: what looks like advanced care to some looks Borg-derived to others. Captain Valdes is drawn into an increasingly complex decision about whether Captain Corrin’s treatment should be completed, interrupted, or understood as treatment at all, while the alternate Federation works quietly to reduce the disruption caused by Shadow’s presence. With the USS Cobb still at the center of the incursion, the Shadow’s crew is forced to confront a reality in which consent and autonomy no longer mean quite what they thought they meant.
USS Unification
With the Unification seemingly testing all of its crew, multiple members are facing their inner demons with the aid of an alternate universe crew from Voyager. It’s only a matter of time before their trials are over. The question that remains is simple: can they overcome it?
Zephyr Squadron
The universe of 2295 is empty as the discovery of a highly experimental and powerful Excelsior-class Enterprise B is discovered by the lost cadets, along with an ailing and regretful Captain Christopher Pike. The Mackenzie and Perseverance discover an exiled Spock who points them towards the Enterprise. The various crews reunite, but a revelation chills them all – V’ger is coming back having detected signs of the Creator and blocks their retreat home.
Task Force 47
Starbase 11
The crew of Starbase 11 attempted, despite being warned by their mysterious captors, to escape the barrier that contained them in hopes of seeking aid. A shuttlecraft was constructed with a dangerous and highly experimental phase shifting device that they had developed by reverse engineering weapons technology. The shuttle did manage to escape, only to be destroyed seconds after successfully doing so. The debris caught the attention of the Loom, which erased the shuttle and in doing so, forced their captors to explain that they had been protecting the crew from the Loom while attempting to learn where to send them back to. With a finite barrier only keeping the paradox eradicating creatures temporarily at bay, the crew must work with their captors turned protectors to get them home before their protection fails and the Loom wipe the station from existence.
USS Dragon
After an extensive investigation, the crew of the USS Dragon has uncovered the depths of the displaced and the universe they reside in. Parasitic lifeforms, once encountered and stopped 40 years prior in the prime universe, thrive in this displaced, contaminated universe. The displaced officers are freedom fighters, trying to free their galaxy from the parasite’s authoritarian grasp, and now the crew of the dragon that swapped places with them is at the heart of that dystopia. The Dragon has just crossed over, in a race to save their people, and stop the Loom from emerging, and consuming them all!
USS Santa Fe
Kurino takes charge of Santa Fe, and alongside Irix, the little ships of Lexington Squadron make their plunge into a much worse Dominion War. As the guillotine hangs over their heads, Song and Steiner finally determine what is going on with them, but with no hope of escape, they must ready Crockett for the coming storm- and hope for a miracle.
Typhon Division
Unexpectedly, Ascension Division’s transition to their alternate reality destination was relatively uneventful, allowing the trio of ships to quickly deploy to the former Cardassian Union and begin their search for Jianna Krim. Everyone’s nerves are on edge and when parties beyond the ship begin to notice their presence, confrontation won’t be far behind.
Task Force 72
USS Phoenix
The USS Phoenix picked up reinforcements and passed through the portal at Starbase 80. After arriving in the alternate universe, the Phoenix has found where the runabout is located…eight days away. Meanwhile, Captain Kirok Skyrunner and the missing runabout Grand River, ended up captured by an alternate Sophia Rodriguez while on a K’Zhit patrol ship. While captured, all five were tortured for information, where they encountered the only two Ferengi that were in the Delta Quadrant. While a Loom creature attacked the K’Zhit patrol ship, Captain Skyrunner and crew made their escape to the runabout and barely escaped before the Loom creature erased the entire patrol ship. The K’Zhit Alliance Ruling Council has ordered a cruiser to hunt down the aliens.
USS Thunderchild
While the USS Thunderchild and USS Oberon remain at Starbase 80, Captain Jast assumes command of the cloaked RRW Alidar and leads a rescue mission across the quantum rift into the alternate reality, battling disorienting memory bleed from his symbiont as they track the T’Ong. At Nemus Station, Commander Talisa’s displaced team, embedded in a Dominion-auxiliary Romulan crew, rigs explosive charges in a shipment of genetically engineered Chameloid infants intended to be used in experiments to resurrect the Founders and the Great Link. As K’trok’s T’Ong and Jesar’Gatrak’s Bird of Prey launch a daring assault on the station, Talisa makes contact and coordinates a desperate extraction. Meanwhile, on Bajor, Captain Day Renora and Ensign Renn continue their dangerous charade at Labor Camp Theta-9, protecting the imprisoned Starfleet officers while Day struggles against invasive memory bleed.
USS Vigilant
Catapulted into an alternate 22nd Century, the crew of the USS Vigilant search for the Displaced Captain Hansen and Six of Eleven and soon the Displaced are located aboard the NX-03 SS Challenger, but their problems are just beginning. Sabotaged by its Terra Prime, the Challenger is found to be sinking into the heart of a Sun and Captain Sam Hyland and her away team race against time to save her. They discover that Six of Eleven has been kidnapped, the Terra Prime political party seeking to use her presence to argue against further fraternization with aliens and they seek to vote down the charter that will see the formation of the Coalition of Planets, the organization that will one day lead to the Birth of the Federation. Meanwhile, The Loom (who have already attacked the Challenger and fed upon the majority of her crew) return to finish their meal….
Task Force 86
USS Appalachia
Having located the wreckage of the Goldfinch on the surface, USS Appalachia sent down – by way of the cloaked RRW Kormoran, hiding in orbit – an away team to search for survivors, while IKS Slivin investigated a Klingon listening post. Finding evidence that the survivors had left the crash site, the away team tracked them to a small city of the planet’s pre-warp simian-humanoid civilization. Discovering the survivors imprisoned within a cathedral-like structure, which bore evidence that this civilization seemed to worship the Klingons as gods, an effort was put into motion to free them, though not before the listening post detected Appalachia – joined by the newly-arrived USS Moorpark – approaching and sent out a distress call that foiled Slivin’s hitherto-successful effort to bluff a pair of Klingon ships away.
USS Grus
It wasn’t just Ensign Harris and Lieutenant Devron that had crossed into the alternate reality via the holo-suite whilst the link existed; a strange and potentially indestructible entity created by the Vezda. Part electronic, part organic; it acts like a virus, slowly taking over. Gaining energy and strength from its host and anything around it; much like the creatures that created it. Inside the body of the alternate Chief Engineer Lyambo, it has become aware of the potential of the interdimensional rift. Devron convinces Poole that destroying the ship is the only way to prevent it from succeeding; however the Commander is killed before issuing the destruct code and Jason must give the order instead.
Task Force 93
USS Foxglove
The crew, having located Commander Alvarez, began working alongside the resistance. As conditions on this Earth continued to deteriorate, they discover that something is actively attempting to correct the timeline. With their shuttle discovered by the Borg and the USS Foxglove unable to extract them, the away team is trapped. Now, facing the realization that they may be next to disappear, they must find a way out of this reality.
USS Fresno, Valley Forge, and IKS Hegh’ta
Captain Dart finds himself all too willing to settle into the lie of an idyllic domestic fantasy. But this reality isn’t as tranquil as it seems, and comes with a pitfall that reveals a galaxy conquered by the Vaadwaur. A second encounter with a specter wearing his appearance drives him off the deep end, spewing prophesies of doom as he wakes up in the alternate Fresno’s sick bay. Meanwhile in the Prime Universe, the Fresno and the Valley Forge finish their humanitarian mission and are ready to get to the bottom of the disappearance of the captain of the Fresno. Their own encounter with this same freakish specter causes them to question the depths of this situation. The plot will only thicken as the IKS Hegh’ta stalks a pair of Vaadwaur vessels that seem to have appeared from thin air to close in on and attack these two Federation commands…
USS Gilroy
The USS Gilroy and her crew are intercepted by the Vigilant, a hostile ship piloted by Augmented Humans. Desperate to capture the Gilroy – as well as the Tiro who they were sent to rescue – to help restore their social standing, the Vigilant attacks and severely cripples the Gilroy. The crew find themselves repelling boarders while desperately working to restore power.
USS Solvang
The crew of the USS Solvang banded together to battle a common enemy – the crushing weight of their own existence. Fighting existential dread, they used logic and cleverness to solve the issues at hand.
USS Surveyor
Surveyor Escaped the Borg cube with the aid of some of this reality’s inhabitants. They are soon escorted to the last outpost of the Alpha quadrant races – Following a meeting, they discover they are in an alternate 23rd century, theBorg have invaded nearly 70 years too early. They must now and battle the morality of whether or not to interfere. Meanwhile Sarik finds himself aboard the Borg cube, he comes face to face with this universe’s Locutis. While the Borg attempt to assimilate him – something is slowing the progression. He has become an enigma to the Borg but must now fight for his own survival, as the collective slowly dissect his mind.
USS Vallejo
The USS Vallejo is dispatched to Ajilon Prime to investigate a man who claims to be the sole survivor of a reality erased by a god-like AI called The Shepherd. The crew’s investigation is quickly complicated by the silent erasures of personnel by a mysterious entity known as The Loom and the unwelcome arrival of a Tal Shiar Warbird seeking to exploit the situation. They discover The Shepherd’s agents, “Phantoms,” are infiltrating the colony, leading to a disastrous attempt to pit the Romulans against them. After a Phantom board the ship, the crew manages to capture and destroy it, but not before the entity’s silent erasures claim another officer’s life. Faced with mounting losses and an enemy they cannot fight conventionally, the crew’s resolve begins to crumble under the immense pressure
