Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned: Chapter 7

[Livvy Sandoval]

"Almost the whole family is missing body parts," Xander said. "Dad's missing three limbs, and mom is missing a few limbs herself. Grandma has an artificial lung and heart."

"Gee thanks for the vote of confidence bro," Livvy said. "Besides Di doesn't need to be a good fighter. She has us coming along. I may be an engineer, but I have Klingon blood in my veins, and you weild a kliden better than most."

Xander shrugged, "Master Donovan says I still have much to learn."

"That's because Kat is a perfectionist, and she studied under Grandma who is almost as bad."

"Worse," Xander added. He took a long drink from his beer, refilled his glass and downed it again.

Livvy shrugged and turned to Diana, "You will have my bat'leth."

"And my kliden," Xander added.

Livvy smiled, "Four more makes nine. It's a traditional quest number."

Xander rolled his eyes.

[Diana Talon]

Diana gave Xander a look and laughed. "Livvy, that's why I love you. I have to say, I love that all of us have remained so close. So let's do this... fellowship of the whatever it is we're looking for!"

[Livvy Sandoval]

"There's a big question. How are we going to get... to wherever it is we are going?"

[Diana Talon]

"Well, I AM First Daughter... could probably sweet talk my way into getting something." Diana said with a hum.

"Or you could just ask your elders." Kirby said and crossed her arms. "Mata Hari's been in dock for months ever since my Liv broke her foot jumping off a speaker and she's been too busy recording to really tour right now."

"Mata Hari would be a good ship for that, civilian registry, military hardware under the hood." Kalia hummed. "I could probably even make a case for... oh I don't know... loading some more ordinance on her with a... shipping contract. I think a few Quantum torpedoes delivered to Earth would be a nice gesture..." she smirked and gave a wicked grin. "They'll just come out of torpedo tubes..."

"And I did just install that new nano reactive coating on her hull." Diana nodded her head. "So are we really doing this? I mean... for real? Who else is going to join us?"

[Livvy Sandoval]

"Well," Livvy started. "Art for one, and this Vogler chick too."

[Lana Ryder]

"I'm down if you want some 'adult supervision'." Lana said with a wink. "Unless you want someone more your age... you could always ask if Karina and Jay are free. Aunt Angel can't monopolize them THAT much. Jay just got promoted to Lt. Commander and took... ah ha. I know where we're going to get our ship. Jay. He's got the mothball Fleet, he's been working with Admiral Parros in getting the old battered ships from the Imperium War and Dominus battles ready for refit. That way we're not jeopardizing the Mata Hari... and if the Klingons happen to get in our way... mom won't kill us."

"Please... blow up the Hari." Kirby laughed. "Where the bloody hell she found a Walker class is beyond me, personally I wanted a Sabre."

[Livvy Sandoval]

"Mom has a line on an old Akira-class. Last I spoke to her she was trying to figure out how to salvage it. Apparently it crash landed on one of the planets on the Cardassian side of the old demilitarized zone, and is mostly intact."

[Diana Talon]

"Well we only need a heavy shuttle or something for the team and then we get that other ship up and running, at least it's not on anything 'official' so if this whole thing goes FUBAR we're not getting the Alliance into another war." Diana replied. "I can bring whatever parts we may need in buffer cubes and use MIKI and IRIS avatars to do the actual repair work." she hummed and looked at Livvy. "Been an age since we've had a project we could really sink our teeth into. An an Akira, even running on automation and hasty repairs is still way better than anything we could probably 'borrow' that's civilian."

[Livvy Sandoval]

Livvy nodded. She had gotten her mom's love of salvaging the unsalvageable. The thrill was.... well, there was nothing quite like flipping that switch and seeing something everyone told you was a waste of time come to life.

"If no one salvaged anything off of it, it should be a gold mine, being as it was a Dominion war casualty. A full complament of quantum torpedoes, ablative hull armor, and class X phaser arrays. Most freighters only have salvaged class VII phasers, few come with Class X. Still mostly a military phaser, if not 40 years or so out of date.

"We'll have to rebuild the engines if we want to go faster than warp 9ish. And we will need EVA suits until we can get life support online. That's the problem. It crashed on a Class Y Demon planet in the Argellis system."

[Diana Talon]

Diana nodded her head. "Well that shouldn't be too difficult, remember that old Intrepid we got running again, no warp core, crapped up computer core, we installed an AliceCore power system and an auxiliary computer control and got it up to almost transwarp, as long as the drive coils in the nacelles are still mostly intact, otherwise we may need to limp her to a shipyard. Although it would be a good test of the new nanotech repair drones I've been developing. The holy grail has always been a way to repair a heavily damaged ship in the field without the need for a dry dock."