An interesting group of star trek tales. I liked them all until I got to this last chapter, the chances of either bush having a starship named after them is more remote than the edge of the galaxy. Double for M. Thatcher

Been a while since I reviewed, but the quality of this series has just gone up and up.

Read through the whole thing but reviewing here.

First, excellent way to manage a space battle! It was exciting and yet realistic! Though I wouldn't have minded if you'd made shields or an SIF available. Or hell, just polarized hull plating. Not that they'd go down by percentages, of course, but the technology is something doable I should think.

Overall nice to see Montoya's growth in this episode and I hope JJ Abrams takes notice of this. I just hope you don't make things too "Hard Scifi". Gotta keep the Star Trek spirit in there somewhere. Just not the idiocy.

Pete Shanahan, huh? Does he happen to be involved with a woman named Samantha Carter, by any chance?

Long time reader, first time caller. I've enjoyed the heck out of your stories, specifically the character logic and consistency with which they interact in their environment. There's a lot more Heinlein sensibility here than Roddenberry and this is not a bad thing. It's enlightening to watch the growing pains of your expeditionary crews, as military veterans try and keep their ships running while scientists bustle about with new-fangled tricorders and generally get in their way. To my knowledge this is an idea that's never been covered: how does what is essentially a naval force adapt itself to an exploratory mission? We viewers have taken for granted that the TV Starfleet happily integrates its science teams with starship crews and commanders, but your take is probably more realistic.

Seems like Pike is coming around to a desire to really make the mission work instead of simply forging on with his previous "let's get this over with" attitude. I'm also curious to follow Montoya's development in your universe. She embodies many of the attributes associated with the as-filmed Trek Starfleet, and the tension between her idealism and the practicality of the current 'Prize crew is one of the stand out elements of your tales.

Oh, and the model geek in me is trying to figure out how to scratch build your Enterprise. I imagine it to be a pretty nifty design.

Thanks for the good word, Rigil Kent! I'll try to answer your points in order:

-Enterprise darted up and forward. Thanks for catching that. Editing in Document Manager has been a bitch lately.

-The exclamation points (!) come from the fact that I originally wanted to write comic books. Battle scenes in those always have the combatants using their "command voices" straight through. Sorry.

-I'll state it flat out: There shall never be a KIRK in Star Trek, MY Way! NEVER! If you're reading these stories waiting for Kirk, you will be sadly disappointed. Just FYI.

-I'm glad I have you convinced that you can do real science fiction in Star Trek. Now if I could just convince the rest of the fan base before JJ Abrams starts rolling film on the movie... (Yes, there is an AGENDA behind this series.)

-Spoiler: You're going to get a little insight into why Montoya is the way she is next episode, but yes, she grew up just a smidge in the aftermath of battle. (And the Klingons' interest in her and Silas will become more evident as the series goes, but that factoid won't make it down to them immediately...hee, hee, hee)

-The thing you have to understand about canon Klingons - and canon villains in general - is that if they were written realistically they would kick the Federation's ass on a regular basis (It's always been my contention that the day a Romulan grows a brain and really assesses the correlation of forces, the Feds are f*ed.) so the villains are written so that idealized good guys can beat them without being overly violent. My good guys have no such handicap. They win because they learned lessons of combat handed down to them from TOP GUN. It's not irony. It's simply the mindset of the writer.

RADM April, huh? So can we expect to see LT JG or LT Kirk at some point? Heh.

Excellent, excellent fic. I've read it thrice now, and it's easily my favorite of the series. I REALLY appreciate that you're emphasizing the harder aspects of sci-fi (I, for one, would LOVE to see a show based on this because of how it's Hard Sci-Fi instead of the soft, gushy stuff of recent Trek) and it's nice to see that Montoya is starting to grow up just a bit. I mean, anyone with an actual brain can see that those evil Starfleeters were the good guys in this. I wonder how she would react if she found out that she and Silas were the actual targets of this entire operation? (You have GOT to work that in at some point, man!)

And I have to say, I found it amazingly ironic that the humans kicked the crap out of the Klingons so efficiently. It's long been my assertion that the "super warrior" reputation of the Klingons is VASTLY overrated (simply based on how incompetent they usually are on the canonical shows).

Excellent job!

The exclamation points (!) were a little distracting, but this was otherwise a fantastic space battle. Well done!

Missing something in this chapter: a paragraph begins "darted up and forward as twenty missiles"

WHAT darted up?