12.17 Historical Articles: The Mighty Hood Goes Down

HISTORICAL ARTICLES THE MIGHTY HOOD GOES DOWN UFP INFONET – 13 OCTOBER 2286

Starfleet is reporting that one of its starships, the heavy cruiser Hood, was destroyed earlier today in an unprovoked attack by a Klingon warship. The Hood and two other Starfleet vessels had been dispatched to investigate reports of Klingon raids on border colonies near the Treaty Zone. What they found, according to a Starfleet spokesman, was one of the Klingon’s new D-9 class heavy destroyers. When it was ordered to stand down the Klingon captain turned and attacked, crippling the Hood with its first salvo. It then ignored the fire from the other two Starfleet vessels and destroyed the Hood with a second salvo as it was attempting to flee the scene of battle. All but three members of the Hood’s crew were killed. The Klingon starship then engaged the other two Starfleet vessels, crippling the destroyer Ajax before its own mounting damage forced its withdrawal.

The only survivors from the Hood were three space-suited maintenance personnel who had been affecting emergency repairs on Hood’s shuttlecraft bay. They were blown out of the bay when the ship was destroyed and later picked up by the destroyer Moltke, the only member of the Hood’s battle group to escape relatively unscathed. The other 493 members of the Hood’s crew, including Captain Andlath Kontaris and his command staff, went down with their ship. The present whereabouts of the Klingon D-9 that destroyed the Hood are unknown. LAUNCH OF THE GREAT EXPERIMENT “NEWS BITS” –CLASSIC STARSHIPS MAGAZINE– FEBRUARY 2288

The newest starship to join the fleet may very well be its greatest yet. Excelsior, the winning design in Starfleet’s Space Control Ship Program, was commissioned into service today in an official ceremony presided over by Fleet Admiral Randolph Morrow, Commander-in-Chief of Starfleet. Admiral Morrow admitted that Excelsior’s development history had been a troubled one but that those issues were behind it now.

The failure of transwarp drive doesn’t mar the fact that Excelsior still represents the future of Starfleet. It was one of many new systems that were tried, and it was the only one to fail. That one failure was easily fixed by resorting to tried and true standard warp drive systems. With this problem resolved, Excelsior has since gone on to excel at every one of her space trials, breaking records across the board. She is the newest, largest, and most powerful ship to join the fleet.

With Excelsior now part of Starfleet, the Klingon Empire cannot help but take notice of the fact that Starfleet will not be cowed by new Klingon designs and even grander ambitions. We will match them size for size, ship for ship, fleet for fleet, until they come to understand our resolve. The Federation has no intention of becoming a Klingon vassal state. Excelsior, and her offspring to come, will make sure of that.

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