USS Black Hawk (NCC-65334-A)

USS Black Hawk-A
Class Information
Assigned System:	Finnea Sector
Class:	Century-Class
Management
CO:	Captain Harvey Geisler
XO:	Cmdr. Terry Walsh
Crew Compliment
Officers:	241
Enlisted:	642
Civilians:	20
Unique Features
325th Fighter Squadron

The USS Black Hawk-A is a Century-Class starship assigned to Task Force 9. It is currently operating as a member of Task Group Vanguard and is currently based out of Finnea Prime to study the Finnean Convergence Zone. She is also currently home to the 325th Fighter Squadron. The vessel was commissioned in October 2388 and replaced the fallen USS Black Hawk (NCC-65334) as the second starship to bear the name.

Specifications

For a complete overview of the USS Black Hawk-A's specifications, please review USS Black Hawk-A Specifications.

Adventures

Just a couple of months following the Akira-Class ship's destruction, Starfleet commissioned a brand new Century-Class starship christened the USS Black Hawk-A. The majority of the command crew of its predecessor were summoned back into service and propelled towards their destiny.

Finnean Convergence Zone

See Also Season 3

A little more than three months since the Federation ended the Consortium coup. The USS Vasco de Gama, a Nova Class Starfleet vessel patrolling the mouth of the Finnean Convergence Zone, comes across a 100-year old Class Nine Probe. Their engineers quickly uncover the first page of a great mystery, a garbled message stating that a great danger is about to eclipse the Federation. The recording lasts for minutes, but most of the information had been lost due to years of aged equipment and hardware.

Normally, such a discovery would be inventoried and carefully studied. However, the crew of the Black Hawk is summoned back to active service to discover the origin of the probe, determine if the Federation is actually in danger, and find out why the message was sent by Harvey Geisler himself. The probe, unfortunately, had been captured, along with the USS Vasco de Gama and Deep Space 15 in orbit of Finnea Prime, a Federation station that had been abandoned during the Consortium Crisis. After days of negotiation, Captain Geisler and his crew were able to resecure the station, as well as lay the groundwork to restablize the Finnean society, yielding the return of all Federation property, including the probe (The Finnean Crisis (Mission)).

A month later and after several close studies of the Convergence Zone, the USS Black Hawk was able to traverse the barrier no one had been able to break in nearly twenty years. Their method involved various modifications to the shield and deflector grids, allowing the ship to offset multiple quantum variables without being translated through various spatial dimensions. The experience was not fully successful as the Black Hawk lost power shortly before exiting the zone. The crew was also bombarded with an unknown radiation, rendering them unable to remember anything. A simple medical procedure was able to restore the crew's memories. This came just in time as a mysterious group called The Guardians attempted to take the Black Hawk for themselves (Crossing Over (Mission)).

After the crew finished repairs, they set course for the nearby Alpha Trios system where sensors revealed five destroyed planets and two small artificial establishments. Multiple away teams are dispatched to learn as much as they could. Their discoveries match well with the conditions of the Guardians. The level of technology in the universe is consistent with the Federation at the turn of the 24th century but there doesn't seem to be anyone developing technology further, and many of the locals seem resigned to their fate to live within a dystopian universe. The crew regroup and withdraw to a nearby nebula in which they begin to analyze the fragmented information they collected (The Search Begins (Mission)).

The ship is soon rocked by five quantum filaments. Three of these filaments become lodged in the antimatter and rotate, displacing three-quarters of the crew, including the vast majority of the command staff, across a seventy-year span. The antimatter becomes unstable, and threatens to breach at any attempt to move the ship. Desperate for answers, and to avoid a painful death at the hand of theta radiation poisoning, members of the engineering crew hatch a plan to bombard the antimatter with nucleonic particles. Information on how to do this is stored in the main computer and unlocked by the displaced crew. The attempt works, and the quantum filaments are reversed, restoring everyone to the proper time (Fractured (Mission)).

A month later, the ship arrives at the Kalisa Sector, following a theory obtained from their visit to Alpha Trios IV. An Away Team is dispatched to a mysterious and ancient archive on the Kalisan homeworld, which is surrounded by a dense minefield. While the Black Hawk remains outside the minefield, the ship's hull attracts a microscopic cosmozoan which eats through the ablative armor and digs into the tritanium hull plating. The cosmozoan's presence isn't detected until it covers nearly twenty percent of the hull and its byproduct has generated enough radiation to disrupt the memories and higher-thinking functions of the crew. Thankfully, the crew is able to counteract both the radiation's effects and the cosmozoan itself by the time the Away Team returns (The Kalisa Conundrum (Mission)).

The crew take several days to analyze the data collected from the archive and discover that Penduli V could hold a large piece to the puzzle. The Black Hawk arrives in the system to find the planet surrounded by a minefield that puts the Kalisan Archive to shame. Using a field generator obtained from the archive, the Black Hawk traverses the minefield with ease and sends an Away Team to the planet surface. The Away Team, which includes a fair portion of the Senior Staff, is quickly overtaken by the Dolmoqour, and reveal that they are the reason behind the Great Conflict. The Away Team returns to the Black Hawk and attempts to take over the ship. For several hours, a war for the Black Hawk ensnares the entire crew. Under the direction of Captain Geisler, and assistance provided by The Guardians, the Black Hawk manages to overcome the Dolmoqour, but not without serious damage to the starship (Truth and Justice (Mission)).

The Guardians escort the Black Hawk to the Alpha Trios system where it parks in orbit of Alpha Trios III. Several crew, including the severely wounded and traumatized, are dispatched via shuttle through the Finnean Convergence Zone barrier in order to return to capable Starfleet facilities for treatment. The data collected from these transits through the barrier are analyzed by Research and Development, who then outfit deflector shield modifications to Norway- and Diligent-class vessels. The USS Haggold, USS Touyu, and the USS Shrehriab successfully cross the barrier without incident and arrive at the USS Black Hawk's position to begin repairs to the damaged skeletal structure. Repairs last for six weeks, during which time, the USS Honshu arrives in the system with Admiral Zachary O'Connell on board. Admiral O'Connell meets with Guardian Commander Varke, as well as representatives from the native species. Three days of intense negotiations follow, after which the Admiral announces a new partnership with the Guardians, providing new sensor technology to detect the Dolmoqour parasites. The Guardians, meanwhile, pledge to end the technological stalemate in order to allow the inhabitants of the Zone to no longer live in poverty. Both the station at Alpha Trios III and the planetary encampment on Alpha Trios IV are selected as the initial locations to lift the embargo and acclimate the inhabitants to life as it should be.

On Stardate 66423.7 (June 4th), a repaired Black Hawk successfully attempts to punch through the barrier, although it suffers extreme damage to the warp drive and other structural damage. The ship is escorted at Warp Four to New Bajor where it enters a drydock orbiting the planet for extensive repair. Initial estimates put the repair timeline just under six months. Most of the crew elect to stay with the mighty starship and get involved in the repair and refit, while others accept temporary assignment away from the starship (Epilogue (Mission)).

Gamma Quadrant Adventures

See also Season 4.

On Stardate 67012.7, after six months of refit in drydock, the Black Hawk launches on a shakedown cruise to test its new features (Sentience (Mission)).