Equipment
Hull Separation Capability
Emergency separation of the primary hull section from the secondary hull is possible. The secondary hull houses the disruptor cannon and is able to function at sublight speeds. The main bridge section is also capable of separation from the primary hull, and is maneuverable at impulse speeds using emergency impulse engines.
Weaponry
The Qang class has one forward-facing disruptor cannon, mounted in the “head” of the ship, with an output of7.8x1012w/3.7x1012w continuous. There are 12 360° disruptor arrays on the Qang. Six are top-mounted and six are bottom-mounted with an output of 9.0x1012/4.0x1012w. All disruptors are set for a variable modulation every 10–12 seconds with a repetition rate of 300,000 cycles; this feature was added to combat the Borg. The photon-torpedo tubes are located on the bottom of the ship. Standard complement of torpedoes for this ship is 102 photon and 36 quantum torpedoes.
Deflector Shields and Plating
Advanced deflector emitters create an energetic deflecting shield around the ship. Emitters are located in various sections of the ship and provide overlap shielding, causing attacks and collisions to “glance off.” When the deflector shields fail, the ship relies upon its damage deflective plating, which enhances standard hull integrity to absorb damage until the deflector shields can be reengaged.
Cloaking Device
The cloaking device utilizes a gravitational field to bend light around the ship, while using warp-bubble technology to bend space-time, making the ship appear invisible. The field generators are located in the lower midsection of the ship.
ECM
The ECM hampers enemy communications, scrambles sensors, and even creates false images to confuse enemy craft and installations.
Tractor Beams
The tractor-beam system utilizes an energy field generator to either surround and pull, or push against objects the ship needs to capture/move. The inertial dampers and impulse drive must be online for this system to work during flight, inertial dampers for unexpected bumps and collisions and the impulse engines so that when the ship is moving something larger than itself the object moves and the ship does not. The tractor beam is located in the lower fore section of the ship.
The tractor-beam inflight sequence is as follows:
Tractor beam activated
Inertial dampers to 100%
Impulse engines engaged
Tractor beam charged and ready
Holodeck
The holodeck uses a combination of holographic, replicator, and transporter technology. The holocomputer calculates the three-dimensional divergent patterns of light that would be cast from any given hypothetical or real object submitted by the person writing the program, and projects it as a hologram. Simultaneously the holodeck matter replication and transport beam utilizes “holodeck matter” to form a holobeing or object with substance. Holobeing personalities are preprogrammed and controlled by the holocomputer as defined by the program. Projected holograms are used on the walls of the holodeck to give the illusion of a three-dimensional environment that extends to the horizon. Holodeck matter owes its form and solidity to the pattern held within the holodeck replication and transport buffer and therefore is disassembled when the emitters are turned off or the holomatter is removed from the holodeck. Klingon holodecks are used to heighten hunting and fighting skills. There are no safety protocols; any damage done is the real thing.
Transporters
There are 35 six-person transporters with three separate molecular/informational signature pattern buffers per transporter. The transporter platform is slightly raised to reduce the chance of occasional static discharge. Destination coordinates are relayed via computer from the destination or are directly input by the operator. Targeting scanners located in the sensor arrays determine the coordinates and provide environmental information on the target site. A standard transporter has a range of 40,000km.
The annular confinement beam (ACB) creates a spatial matrix from the primary energizing coils overhead, four redundant molecular imaging scanners in the overhead pads make the memory file of the transporter’s quantum state. An individual’s molecular/genetic pattern is scanned and old records are updated with current information. Or, for a firsttime transport the new individual’s molecular/genetic patterns are stored, allowing for emergency molecular reconstruction during subsequent transports. The pattern is stored in the buffer as a retrievable trace, while a transporter log records the beamout. All signatures are stored until purposefully purged by transporter personnel.
Using a widespread quark manipulation field, the phase transition coils in the lower pads disassemble the body by unbinding the energy at a subatomic level; once converted to a subatomic matter stream the transporter is diverted into a pattern buffer. This is due to the Doppler effect (any relative motion between transporter and target must be taken into account). The pattern buffer is used for Doppler shift compensation. A buffer may hold the entire matter stream for up to 420 seconds before permanent pattern degradation occurs. Once beamout is secured, an ACB “carrier” directs each pattern’s matter stream through an emitter array on the hull of the ship, toward the target coordinates. A booster set of coils and scanners then work in reverse within the ACB to reassemble each pattern into its original form. These arrays work in such a way as to provide 360° coverage in all directions, as well as intraship transports. The ACB can be used to remove weapons and other “non desirable” items from incoming transporters, and the transporter’s biofilter automatically detects and removes all active forms of known harmful viruses and diseases.
Propulsion (Impulse)
The impulse engines utilize collector arrays, situated in the foresections of the ship’s wings, to gather available energy of any type from the surrounding space, which is then filtered through a series of energy replicators, where it is changed into the deuterium atoms needed to cause the fusion reaction that powers the impulse drive unit.
At full impulse speed, the ship is traveling at 1/4 light speed, or 125,000 km/sec. If it wasn’t for the inertial damping systems, at those speeds most creatures would be torn apart…including Klingons.
Inertial Dampers
This system uses warp technology to generate a limited “soap bubble” effect, which falsifies a planetary atmospheric environment. There are set openings in the “bubble” at the impulse ports, allowing the impulse engines to push the ship along without gravitational/impact damage to the interior and crew.
Inertial dampers are on a continuous setting of 50% to allow for unexpected impacts, advancing as the impulse engines/tractor beams are activated, or impact happens.
Impulse sequence is as follows:
Impulse Engines 0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Inertial Dampers 50% 70% 90% 100%
Propulsion (warp)
The warp drive unit allows for faster-than-light travel without the time dilation and matter density problems involved in traveling “near light” to light speeds. Inside the warp core, deuterium gasses and antimatter in the form of antihydrogen, regulated and controlled by dilithium crystals, are forced together, causing a small controlled matter/antimatter explosion, which is contained within the reaction chamber of the main warp core. The explosion creates an energy stream, which is collected by power converters and routed via conduit to the warp nacelles. Inside the nacelles the routed plasma is used to energize the verterium cortenide warp field generators. Verterium cortenide causes the plasma frequencies to shift into subspace, creating fields of warped space. The field coils inside the nacelles are arranged in rows, each layer exerting controlled force against its outermost neighboring coil. The cumulative force of the nested fields drives the ship on a spatial wave. The coils are energized in sequential order, the number of times each coil is energized controls the overall warp speed factor of the vessel.
Acceleration is as follows:
Speed KPH x light
Standard Orbit 9600 0.00001
Full Impulse 270 million 0.25
Warp 1 1 billion 1
Warp 2 11 billion 10
Warp 3 42 billion 39
Warp 4 109 billion 102
Warp 5 230 billion 214
Warp 6 421 billion 392
Warp 7 703 million 656
Warp 8 1.10 billion 1,024
Warp 9 1.62 billion 1,516
Warp 9.2 1.77 billion 1,649
Warp 9.6 2.05 billion 1.909
Warp 9.9 3.27 billion 3.053
Dilithium Crystals
Dilithium is currently the only matter known to be porous to antimatter. Each individual crystal is a crystalline latticework composed of dilithium, diallosilicate, and heptoferranide. When diverted through the crystal, antimatter remains at a centralized distance from all sides of the latticework. Sonic vibration is used to expand and contract the crystals, regulating the flow of antimatter into the reaction chamber.
Afterword
I first got the idea for The Brave and the Bold in 1999. It had its origins in the 1967 Star Trek episode “The Doomsday Machine.” I always liked the character of Matt Decker—William Windom’s layered performance had a lot to do with that—and I wanted to know more about him. He and Kirk obviously knew each other—they were on a first-name basis—so I started thinking about the idea of a previous adventure that had Kirk and Decker working together.
This got my brain going on the idea of “starship team-up.” Wouldn’t it be cool to pair up the familiar crews with some unknown—or barely known—other ships, and do it from the POV of the other ships? Goodness knows we’ve met enough other captains in guest shots. Why not see how they view Our Heroes? Having already had the jones to put Kirk and Decker together, I used the settings of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager to answer more questions. With DS9 there was the intriguing dislike between Jadzia Dax and Captain Keogh of the Odyssey, as seen in “The Jem’Hadar.” That episode made it clear that the Odyssey had just stopped over at Deep Space 9 recently and that Dax and Keogh didn’t exactly hit it off—so why not chronicle that adventure? It also gave me the opportunity to bring back one of the first Bajoran terrorists we ever met, Orta, from Star Trek: The Next Generation’ s “Ensign Ro.” And, while several novels (Double Helix: Quarantine by John Vornholt, Pathways by Jeri Taylor, and the Voyager segment of Susan Wright’s The Badlands) dealt with the Voyager crew prior to “Caretaker,” none of those tales told the story I was curious about: How and why did Tuvok infiltrate Chakotay’s Maquis cell in the first place? The “team-up” motif necessitated setting the story prior to the Voyager’ s disappearance into the Delta Quadrant in any case, and to my mind, that was the most compelling untold tale from that time period. It also gave me the opportunity to show more of TNG’ s Captain DeSoto, Riker’s former CO, and considered a good friend of Picard’s as well. We’d heard good things about him in “Encounter at Farpoint,” met him briefly in “Tin Man,” but hadn’t gotten a good look at him. This was a chance to do so, and also take another gander at the first Maquis we ever met, Cal Hudson (from DS9’ s “The Maquis Parts 1–2”), and have him join forces with Chakotay.
With the TNG segment, I had the opportunity to revisit a crew I’d developed—that of the I.K.S. Gorkon. In my TNG novel, Diplomatic Implausibility, I’d established the Gorkon, commanded by Klag (first seen in TNG’ s “A Matter of Honor”). Reader response to the Gorkon and its crew (made up of both original characters and past TNG and DS9 guest stars) was outstanding, so I was given the go-ahead to use them again in this duology and continue their stories forward (look for the first two books in the Star Trek: I.K.S. Gorkon series, A Good Day to Die and Honor Bound, in late 2003).
And, naturally, I couldn’t resist the best team-up of all: the “fighting ambassadors,” Worf and Spock.
This duology also has the distinction of being the first story to feature all five Trek TV franchises. The story called for a prelude to get the story going, and what better place to set it than on Captain Archer’s Enterprise?
Several people require thanks and praise for their help in writing these two books:
Top of the list are the nifty-keeno folks at Pocket Books, particularly John J. Ordover, who not only said yes but told me how to make it better, and Carol Greenburg, who molded the shapeless mass (or should that be “mess”?) of my first drafts into good pieces of work, as well as Scott Shannon, Marco Palmieri, Jessica McGivney, Margaret Clark, John Perrella, and most especially Pocket’s unsung heroine, Elisa Kassin. Not far behind them are Paula M. Block and John Van Citters at Paramount, who are truly deities among licensing folk.
As always, Gene Roddenberry, who got this whole schmear started; Gene L. Coon, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Ira Steven Behr, and Brannon Braga for keeping it going; and the screenwriters who gave us the guest captains: Norman Spinrad (Decker), Ira Steven Behr (Keogh), James Crocker (Hudson), Dennis Putman Bailey & David Bischoff (DeSoto), and Burton Armus (Klag).
You can’t do a TV tie-in without thanking the actors—or at least you shouldn’t. They provide the voice you use to write the characters. So hearty thanks to (deep breath): Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Scott Bakula (Archer), Majel Barrett (Chapel and Lwaxana), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Jolene Blalock (T’Pol), Avery Brooks (Sisko), LeVar Burton (La Forge), Bernie Casey (Hudson), Michael Cavanaugh (DeSoto), Stephen Collins (Will Decker), Roxann Dawson (Torres), Michael Dorn (Worf), Brad Dourif (Suder), Terry Farrell (Dax), Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Martha Hackett (Seska), Jeffery Hayenga (Orta), Michael Jace (Shabalala), Scott Jaeck (Cavit), Dominic Keating (Reed), De-Forest Kelley (McCoy), Sterling Macer (Toq), Derek McGrath (Chell), Colm Meaney (O’Brien), Kenny Morrison (Gerron), Kate Mulgrew (Janeway), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Stephanie Niznik (Perim), Natalia Nogulich (Nechayev), Alan Oppenheimer (Keogh), Linda Park (Sato), Richard Poe (Evek), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Armand Schultz (Dalby), William Shatner (Kirk), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Brent Spiner (Data), Patrick Stewart (Picard), George Takei (Sulu), Brian Thompson (Klag), Tony Todd (Rodek), Connor Trinneer (Tucker), Nana Visitor (Kira), and William Windom (Matt Decker).
David Henderson for timeline assistance with the prelude.
The University of Colorado’s Hypertexts for Biomedical Sciences on the Web (http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks), especially their section on the adrenal gland, and the directory of compounds at http://www.allatoms.com/CompoundWebSites.htm.
Dayton Ward, Dave Galanter, and Allyn Gibson for reassuring me that I got Kirk’s voice right.
Roy L. Post, for setting me straight on how to make a moon into arable farmland.
Mindy McAdams for all her help with the details of the Game of Go. For more on this ancient game of strategy, check out the American Go Association’s Web site at http://www.usgo.org.
The Maquis Index at Janet’s Star Trek: Voyager Site (http://www.star-trek-voyager.fsnet.co.uk) for help in identifying the Maquis members of Voyager’ s crew. (Also thanks to Todd “Scavenger” Kogutt for pointing me to it.)
John M. Ford, for his seminal Star Trek novel The Final Reflection—still the definitive Klingon novel—and S. D. Perry and Robert Greenberger, for giving Captain Klag a couple of cameos in Avatar Book 2 and “The Other Side” in What Lay Beyond, respectively.
Michael A. Martin for useful and handy editorial guidance.
Tammy Love Larrabee for taking the vague idea of what the Gorkon looked like in my head and turning it into an actual set of specifications.
GraceAnne Andreassi DeCandido, aka The Mom, aka Editorial Goddess The Elder, who worked her usual magic on my drafts.
The Magical Starbucks of Good Writing in midtown Manhattan. Thanks to owning a laptop, I can write pretty much anywhere, and The Brave and the Bold was written in a variety of locations across the United States (not to mention Montréal)—but, for whatever reason, I was most productive at this particular Starbucks. Go fig’.
CITH, the best writers’ group ever, who kept me on track and gave invaluable feedback that made the book far bet
ter than it would’ve been without them; the Malibu Group and the Geek Patrol, just ’cause; the Fore-bearance, for decades of encouragement; and the ever-encouraging fans on the assorted Internet bulletin boards, but most especially those at Psi Phi’s Star Trek novels board (www.psiphi.org), the Trek BBS’s Trek Literature board (www.trekbbs.com), Simon & Schuster’s Star Trek novels board (www.startrekbooks.com), and the Yahoo! Star Trek Books group.
Most of all, though, to the love of my life, Terri Osborne, who makes it all worthwhile.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
somewhere in New York City, 2002
About the Author
After a trip to the galactic barrier in order to save an injured Klingon, Keith R.A. DeCandido found himself seventy thousand light-years from home and put on trial for the crimes of humanity, after which he was declared Emissary. Eventually, after switching bodies with an insane woman, he was able to become one with the Prophets, stop an anti-time wave from destroying the multiverse, and get home with the help of his alternate future self. These days, he writes in a variety of milieus. His other Star Trek work ranges from the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Diplomatic Implausibility to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Demons of Air and Darkness to the TNG comic book Perchance to Dream to the award-winning DS9 novella “Horn and Ivory.” In addition, he is the co-developer of the Star Trek: S.C.E. line, and has written or cowritten over half a dozen eBooks in this series of adventures featuring the Starfleet Corps of Engineers (some reprinted in the volumes Have Tech, Will Travel and Miracle Workers in early 2002). The year 2003 will see the debut of Star Trek: I.K.S. Gorkon, books starring Captain Klag and his Klingon crew—the first time Pocket Books has published a series focusing on Star Trek’ s most popular aliens. To say Keith is thrilled at this opportunity would be the gravest of understatements. He will also be contributing to the summer 2003 Star Trek: The Lost Era series.
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