[Fan Fiction] Star Trek Crystalis: Shattered

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This Fan fiction does not take place within the same time frames as the USS Cathexis storylines, however, the main character((and parts of his background)) were based on Fleet Admiral Laurent Van den Haus, who is no longer a part of that world.

Crystalis: Shattered Prologue
Laurent sat there carefully looking at the shattered picture of someone he once cared for.
Now, he cared for very little.
In a seperate time-line, he had been a naian, a creature who had annoyed, and devastated a great deal of the Alpha Quadrant.
In this time-line, he was simply human.
Some would say being human is far from being simple, and that, he agreed with.
His mother, Giltje Van den Hause had tried to teach him as much of the dutch heritage he had as she could, but he had refused to learn it.
Now, he wished he had just a little bit more of who he was, and where he came from to weigh in on.
It had been nearly a full month since the USS Crystal had crashed into this dark and bleak planet, way off in the beta quadrant.
His crew, which had once totalled almost 400 people, was now a crew of 9.
The ship itself, the NX-86868, was a prototype starship design, based originally around the excelsior class starship, it was designed to experiment with a new form of warp systems, which had been aptly called "Turbowarp".
The federation had recently abandoned the use of Slipstream, or Transwarp, because the technologies were both found to be economically hard to fund. Transwarp, was also nearly useless in some parts of space, because of temporal or subspace anomalies, which refused such distortions of time in thier presence. Slipstream, while the had ironed out most of the wrinkles, was incredibly energy intensive.
Then starfleet's corps of engineering accidentally tripped over the ability to easily convert dilithium to tri-lithium, for use in torpedoe war-heads.
It was throught that tri-lithium war-heads would cause larger explosions, and be harder to defend against, because of the blunt power used.
Instead, the SCE discovered that tri-lithium was significantly more stable then di-lithium, and made a better fuel catalyst.
They also discovered that putting tri-lithium crystals in standard warp-cores increased thier abilities, nearly into the slipstream fields.
They had found a way to access transwarp speeds without using a transwarp core.
However, they noticed that ships not designed to handle the stresses of transwarp were incapable of running turbo-warp.
So Starfleet looked through thier log books, and found the simplest alternative;
The Excelsior class starships had been originally designed with transwarp drive.
They successfully ran transwarp drive.
Therefore, they could handle transwarp speeds.
So starfleet borrowed the design, and completely reformatted anything besides the basic structural appearances.
The result was what they referred to as the Turbo-Excelsior class.
Not very creative of them, but it worked in the end.
Laurent shook his head, remembering some of the features they had added to it.
A cloaking device... for god only knows why. It's not like they were at war with anyone who could handle anything starfleet threw at them.
Infact, quite the opposite, At current Starfleet, the Klingons, and the Romulans had been at peace for quite sometime, and the cardassians were not even bothering to struggle against this alliance.
Starfleet had come up with the brilliant idea of using starbase repair drones as the main engineering crew. Infact, they had come up with the brilliant idea of automating most of the systems.
In place of the normally large main engineering room, there was a warp core room, which had significant containment fields up, and a primary computer DECK.
The main computer was capable of remotely maintaining every system and subsystem onboard, should the crew be incapacitated.
Now, Laurent stared casually about the bridge, which was currently still tilted sideways, because the ship was still on the surface of the planet, which had no name, and he wondered if his 9 crew members could possibly ever get them home.
They had been travelling in the general vaccinity of a sub-space tear in the briar patch, created long ago, when Captain Picard's Enterprise-E had stopped a Sona threat, when it pulled something sub-space tears do.
It interacted with the unique warp drive, in a non-theorized way, and acted as a catalyst, when they were preparing to go just past the theorized warp limit.
Instead, they had been thrown, at, based on the ship's sensors, in excess of warp 40 for 3.1 seconds, at which point, the gravity of a nearby sun threw them out of warp.
The crew, not knowing exactly what had just happened, didn't notice that the ship was still moving on inertia alone, until it hit the atmosphere, and crashed into the planet.
Now, standing there on the bridge, 3 humans, a vulcan, a hologram, a romulan, 2 andorians, and one half-snake creature, who was actually a civilian cook, stared around the bridge.
Scuttling around the ship, the maintenance droids were finishing up the last of the repairs.
Unfortunately, some of those repairs were rather extensive and some systems, including the Tachyon Torpedoe replicators would still take some time to repair.
Until then, the ship was left with Tachyon phasers, and a very very limited shielding system, which unfortunately, was taking much longer to repair, and make less limited then Laurent had wanted.

One of the consoles on the bridge finally came on-line.
Everyone looked over at it, in surprise. It had been 4 weeks since anything on the bridge had worked, except the over-head lights.
Everyone clustered around the science station, as it came to life.
The incomming message icon was blinking, but the audio circuits were not functional yet.
Basic sensors were running, however.
Apparently, not far over-head, in a neighbouring planet, was a pre-warp civilization.
The message appeared on the screen.
"Whoever you are, wherever you have come from, help us. Save us from the Proctorians."
Laurent stared at the screen, and realized that they had already violated the prime directive.
Upon hitting the atmosphere, the fire around the shields would have been clearly visible through standard telescopes, and upon crashing, and all the power failing, they were clearly visible.
And now, they were being asked to help.
Laurent looked carefully from officer to officer.
Lt. Eva McClaren, his Ops officer was staring at the message with a smile. She knew Laurent's regard for the prime directive, and she probably knew exactly what he was thinking.
It had been along time since Fleet Admiral Van den Hause had held that rank. He had long ago been demoted to Captain because of a prime directive violation. They then assigned him to a starbase for about 7 years.
Now, he was 59 years old, starfleet had sent him on a flying death-trap, which had haphazzardly stuck them in the middle of no where.
So when Eva looked up at him, with that smile still in place, he returned it.
Ensign Cherish Farlane, however, stared at it in horror. The girl was barely out of the academy, but she clearly understood what the message meant. When she looked up, and saw the Lt., and the Captain grinning at eachother, she shook her head, and left the bridge. The young engineer would not want to know what was going to happen, but she would get the ship
T'nara stared at it impassively. The ensign had long ago, been Fleet Admiral Van den Hause's aide, however, she also once held the rank of Lt. Commander. Through that same Prime Directive violation, she now was his helm officer... and an ensign. But she believed what they had done on Sota had been right. The people, despite being a pre-warp civilization had caught a disease, which was OBVIOUSLY genetically engineered, but starfleet wouldn't listen. So Van den Hause, and a small group of others, took a runnabout, along with some basic lab supplies, and set up an intern lab planet side, and developped a cure.
For saving millions of lives, Admiral Van den Hause, and Lt. Commander T'nara had been demoted, Lt. Junior Grade Lamia had been expelled from the fleet, and 3 others had also been demoted.
Laurent's eyes then turned to Lamia, the civilian chef. She stared at it, and then up at the dedication plaque of the Crystal
NX-86868, USS Crystal.
Shattering boundaries, one small step at a time.
The snake-like being looked at Laurent, and nodded. She had nothing left to lose.
The two andorians, both commanders, looked at it, looked between Laurent, Eva, T'nara, and Lamia, and simply nodded. They knew it had to be done, and that none of the four were about to be stopped.
Emett, who had once been an EMH aboard the Starbase that Laurent had served on, who had grown past "Please state the nature of the medical emergency", as most EMH Mark I's did, stared at him.
Clipped to emett's belt was a tri-corder, which had been modified to run as his own personal emitter/scanner/hard drive. Laurent had built it for him, and Emett had been officially made an enlisted crew member, at that point.
Emett smiled, nodded, and laughed.
He knew what Laurent would do.
Lastly, Laurent looked at the Romulan.
T'luna stared back.
T'luna was one of few people who knew what the people on that planet had named Laurent. She had been there, with him, as a Captain, and now wore a Lt. Commander tag on her name, but no one was allowed to use it.
T'luna looked down, then up at the dedication plaque.
"Do what you always do, Crystalis. Shatter expectations, Shatter boundaries, and Shatter the rules. It is what has to be done." She whispered.
Laurent nodded.
"Let's do it then." Laurent said quietly.
The 6.5 other people on the bridge nodded, and went back to fixing thier respective stations.
Lamia looked at Laurent.
"What sssshall I do, Ssssir? I have no rank, no posssition. You have a sssscience officer, a conn officer, a helm officer, an opssss officer, an engineer, you have a romulan advissssor, a holographic friend, and whatever it issss that that andorian doessss in sssstellar cartography, but I have nothing to do but cook. plusss, you know of my isssuessss with andoriansss." She said in her soft whispery voice.
Laurent shook his head.
"You are what we need most. You take replicated food stuffs, and turn them into something edible, you act as a ship's councellor whenever someone has a problem, even the andorians think you are more important then they are. You are the morale officer, the councellor, the chef, you are that one bit of glue that helps all the strands of string stay tied together. Do not ever sell yourself short." Laurent said in reply.
Lamia smiled, bowed her head, and went to the turbolifts.
"The coffee will be ready in 10 minutessss, captain." Lamia said quietly.
Laurent smiled.
"Computer, estimated time untill the repairs are finished?" Laurent asked.
"2.5 days." The system said in reply.
"Estimated time untill we can lift off the planet?" Laurent asked, looking for further clarification.
"Syntax error. The IMPulse engines were repaired 2.3 minutes ago. The Crystal is capable of stellar flight." The computer replied.
Laurent smiled.
"ALL HANDS, prepare for lift off." Laurent said into the comm system.
He looked around the bridge.
"Bridge crew to their stations." He said aloud.
A smile spread across the collective faces on the bridge.
It was time to go back where they belonged.
Making a difference.

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Chapter 1: Systematic recovery.
Laurent rubbed his head.
They had managed to get the ship in orbit of the planet asking for his help.
He sat there across the conference table from the planet's leader.
These strange beings were just blobs of goo. They had something that resembled eyes, and a mouth, but were otherwise just... goo.
"So what is it the proctorians do to your people?" He asked.
"They harvest my people for the goo we are made of. It's petroleum based, so it's considered a lubricant. They kill us because they have stripped thier planet of anything useful. Metals, Petroleum, everything." Glob said.
Laurent found the creature's name amusingly form-fitting.
He nodded towards the creature.
"I'm not surprised. If they are war-like, they will use any resource they can take, and they will usually take it by force. So let's stop them. Let my science people assist yours with setting up a planetary defence system. While that's happening, I'll be here. So sleep safely tonight." Laurent said calmly.
The glob thing nodded.
"I know you will help. But I worry still. These beings are odd." It replied.
Laurent was about to say something, but he stopped.
He stared at Emett.
Emett's eyes went wide.
Laurent was about to ask something of the hologram, but stopped.
"RED ALERT. UNKNOWN VESSEL APPROACHING WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS CHARGED." The compter system said.
He looked at the display panel in the conference lounge.
"Tactical Display." Laurent said.
The screen switched to a display of the planet, with the Crystal orbiting it, and a small ship comming towards it.
"Is that thier idea of a warship?" He asked Glob.
"No. It's a raider." Glob replied.
"Laurent to bridge, Tachyon phasers, blow it out of the sky." Laurent said.
"Aye sir." Eva said over the comm line.
Glob watched the viewport, as the raider drew closer.
He winced as the bright blue phasers fired out from the ship.
The Raider wavered for a second, and exploded.
"Are you sure that was wise?" Glob asked.
"Why do you ask?" Laurent replied.
The viewport appeared to shimmer for a second.
And something HUGE appeared there.
It was a large globe, and it was hard to figure out what was powering, or moving it.
"Raiders never travel alone." Glob said, now fearing the globe, which was about twelve times the size of the Crystal.
"RED ALERT. ALL HANDS TO BATTLESTATIONS, PREPARE FOR DAMAGE CONTROL ISSUES." Laurent said over the intercomm.

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Laurent stared at the globe, thuroughly confused.
What had gone from an un-technologically advanced fighter Vs. an experimental long-range cruiser turned into a ship vs. a planet.
T'luna stared at the globe, her eyebrows risen in a very vulcan manner.
T'nara levelled a glare at the globe.
"Here's hoping they put size where thier' money is, and not technological development." She whispered softly.
Laurent smiled at T'nara's rather.... lacking... abillity to use metaphors, and other typically non-vulcan manners of speaking. She was a vulcan. She would always be. No matter how hard she tried.
Eva stared at the Ops console, and sighed.
"Captain... 53 fighters are on an intercept course. I don't think the globe itself is armed." She said softly.
"Initiating Evasive Maneuvres." T'nara said softly.
Laurent nodded.
"Confirmed." T'luna said from the Science terminal.
The Andorian at the Conn/Navigation console stared.
"Sir, there's a small asteroid belt not far from this planet. We could-" He started up.
But Laurent cut him off.
"I promised Glob I would not abandon his people. While we are playing hide and seek with fighters, what happens to that planet?" He asked.
The Andorian nodded.
The EMH watched carefully, pondering how many lives would be lost.
"You can leave, Emett, if you are uncomfortable watching us obliterate fighter pilots." He said softly.
Emett noddded, and transferred his programming to Sickbay.
"Standing orders, which cannot be overridden." Laurent said to the few on the bridge.
They all turned to him.
"We have promised this planet, who's future we have changed infinitely, that we will be here for them. Until someone comes and carries us away in shackles, I intend to make sure that we fulfill that promise." He said softly.
The Vulcan, Romulan, Human, and Andorian on the bridge nodded.
The Andorian in Stellar Cartography, who heard the all-call automatically picked up by the phrase 'Standing orders, which cannot be overridden', smiled.
Emett in Sickbay nodded his head. As Acting ECH, he would follow it to a T, if anyone was incapacitated.
Lamia, the snake-like woman looked out the window at the planet below. It reminded her of her home.
She smiled.

However, in Engineering, a young ensign, barely out of the Academy, sat in the Chief Engineer's office, with her commbadge in her hands. She was crying. For they had given up the one thing Starfleet holds dear. The non-interference directive.
She stared at the warp core, and a phaser. And then she stared at the repair drone report.
Cannot auto-repair Tachyon Torpedoe Replicator system. Require assistance.
She stared at it.
Then she sighed, and grabbed her tool kit. She knew the crew was relying on her. If they got in a big battle, 35% phaser capacity would not win it for them.

Laurent sat down in his chair, and nodded.
"Hail them, if you can. If you can't, fire a phaser bolt at one of them. I believe it is still universal ettiquite that if one destroys another's toys, it is considered a 'keep out' sign." Laurent instructed.
Various versions of "aye sir" came from around the bridge, as they prepared for battle.
Glob stared from the balcony, watching the miniscule crew, as they prepped for battle.
"This is something we do not have. But something we should try to develop." Glob said softly.
"Weapons like this? It will take a long time." Laurent replied, after realizing the goey thing was still on the bridge.
Glob shook his ''head'', as he had learned this was the human/humanoid way of portraying 'no'.
"Not weapons like this, my friend. Bravery, Courage." The goop-bag said softly.
Laurent nodded.
"Sometimes, my friend, they are more powerful then even a tachyon torpedoe." Laurent replied, as his crew got ready for battle.
"No response from hails." Eva said from Ops.
Laurent nodded.
"Hail them in a different manner." He replied.
She nodded, and pressed in a firing sequence.
The foremost fighter disolved under the phaser-beam.
"Thier' friends did NOT like that, Captain." T'luna said softly.
"What makes you say that?" He asked.
"The nice little bundle of nuclear, and laser weapons they have targetting us." She replied.
Laurent nodded.
"The Universal 'no' response to our' universal 'get the hell out of here' signal." He replied.
"Captain... need I remind you that with our almost negligent shielding, those lasers, and nuclear weaponry may actually damage us." Eva said from Ops.
Laurent nodded.
"I'm aware. They don't want to stop here. So let's send them packing. Random spread of T-phasers, Eva. Don't stop till you, or they drop." Laurent replied.
"Aye sir." She said, laying in a random-automatic-targetting system.
"Fire." Laurent said softly.