Bravo Fleet
Operations as “Normal”
One of the things Vice Admiral Seagraves had learned early on in her tenure as Director of Fourth Fleet Operations is that there was no “normal” when it came to Starfleet, not when the positioning of a hundred or so starships operating out of a dozen or so stations to accomplish two or three hundred missions at a time came down to a game of tri-dimensional chess. More often than not, she found herself not only playing against the crisis du jour but her own complex priorities. Finding the proper starship (in terms of position, capabilities, size, and speed) and the right crew (in terms of experience and specialization) for every mission was a delicate balance of compromise. Maybe a California-class utility cruiser would need to show the flag against a group of Orions testing Starfleet’s patience in the chaos the Century Storm approaching, if there wasn’t a Manticore-class heavy escort to be had, or a Sovereign would have to flex her medical muscles in the absence of a better-equipped Obena or Odyssey, for instance.
The delicate ballet of ships going to and fro across the Federation space was represented by dozens of blue deltas moving ever so slowly (in terms of absolute distance) between the stars on a map in the Operations Center. Out of an abundance of caution, she’d been ordered to decamp to the secure bunker buried beneath Starbase Four’s shore facilities, which was shielded against electromagnetic radiation and all kinds of other exotic dangers like subspace anomalies and temporal rifts. That way, if something were to happen to the orbital facility, at least part of the Fourth Fleet’s command structure would remain intact. The large room was supported by graceful duranium beams, and Starfleet had even fitted it with a holographic ceiling display to simulate the sky above, even though they were nearly a kilometer underground.
So far, ships were getting where they needed to go, and their missions were being accomplished well. Each hour, another dozen reports ended up in Seagraves’s inbox, filtered down from the hundreds that ended up in Captain Bancroft’s, and while there were challenges, the Fourth Fleet was acquitting itself well. She didn’t envy the task that was mounting for the Department of Temporal Investigations to clean up once the storm had passed, but that was thankfully beyond the scope of her role. All in all, the Stormbreaker Campaign was proceeding to plan, and they didn’t even have to violate interstellar law to accomplish that mission! She wasn’t fully satisfied sending a few of their smaller ships on missions a little too big for their capabilities, but even their Ravens were acquitting themselves exceptionally well.
Operations Office Competitions
To close out the competitions side of this campaign, I’m pleased to announce that the Operations Office is running several things meant to spur on your final efforts! Three of these offerings are ribbon races, which reward accumulating the most of a particular ribbon within the time frame of March 8th until March 21st (i.e. to the very end of Stormbreaker):
- Stormbreaker Service Ribbon Race
- Stormbreaker Starbase Bravo Duty Ribbon Race
- Stormbreaker Gaming Ribbon Race
Yes, that’s right! One of these three competitions is tied to Starbase Bravo, so if you haven’t already put a character there, this is your opportunity to jump in to the fun feet first and make some new connections there. The other competitions opening today run from March 8th until March 19th and are a little more traditional. As always, it’s a good idea to enter as many as possible, as that helps your advancement through the rank system and eligibility for awards:
Best of luck to all entrants. Let’s finish Stormbreaker as strong with these as we are in the fiction writing department!