Two men clad in Starfleet red walked along a pleasant side street in the Starfleet Quarter of Serenity City. The summer day was warm and bright, though not overly hot.
Commodore Rick Hunter said, "Yesterday you said you'd get around to telling me why you're visiting, Admiral."
Admiral Jeffrey Pike nodded. He pointed to the sky and said, "It's regarding Starbase 901."
Hunter looked skyward. It was sometimes possible to glimpse the truly enormous space station even during the day, but at the moment it didn't appear to be in view. "What about it?" he asked as he returned his gaze earthward.
"Before and during the Mulluran War, it served a useful purpose. The spacedock facility maintained a fleet of battle-ready starships, hundreds of starfighters, and the 28th Marine Expeditionary Force. Over 100,000 Starfleet and civilian residents lived and worked there. It was a loud and unmistakable statement to the Mullurans that Starfleet was serious about defending this sector against their aggressions."
"But that threat is now gone," said Hunter.
"Exactly," said Pike. "Starfleet feels that the starbase is now simply redundant here at Serenity. Most Starfleet operations have been moved to the planet, many of the starbase's former residents have moved here, and the Marines have gone home. Most of the starships have been reassigned to other sectors. Half the base is empty."
"Still..." mused Hunter. "What are you going to do? Dismantle it and rebuild it somewhere else? That'll take years!"
"No, nothing nearly so inefficient and time-consuming," replied Pike. "We're going to move it!"
Hunter was silent. He wasn't sure he had heard the Admiral right. Move a Buckingham class starbase?!? The thing was miles long! It couldn't be done! "Excuse me, Admiral. Did you say 'move'? Even assuming the structure can be reinforced for the stresses of being shoved around, it would take you a thousand years to get it anywhere useful at impulse speeds..." Hunter's voice faded and his eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. "You're not going to move it at impulse speed, are you?"
Admiral Pike smiled. "Not exactly," he said enigmatically. "We're going to drop it in the Black Gate."
Hunter was speechless. His jaw worked for a few seconds but no sounds came out. Finally, he collected himself and said, "You can't be serious!"
"Very serious," replied Pike, as calm as ever. "The science ship we sent through the Gate after the Banshees returned has been very busy. With the help of the data file from the Ancients that Lieutenant Schmidt recovered from the planet Kurnugi, they've been able to decipher the planetary alignments required for setting the wormhole's destination."
"Amazing," uttered Hunter, wondering what this sort of universe-spanning wormhole system would mean for the Serenity Sector.
Admiral Pike apparently read Hunter's expression, because he said, "Don't get your hopes up too high, Rick. While the wormhole network stretches to the far corners of the universe, most of it is useless to us in any practical way. As you know, the Black Gate's destination is set by the planetary alignments of the three Trojan Planetoids that orbit the wormhole aperture. As the planetoids orbit, the Gate's destination changes. It could be months or even years before a wormhole opens up to where you want to go."
"Too bad we can't control the orbits of the Trojans," commented Hunter wryly. "Then we could set the destination to wherever we wanted."
"True enough," agreed Pike. "Sometimes I wonder if the Ancients didn't have exactly that ability. We know they were incredibly advanced, so why not? It would certainly make the Gate system a lot more convenient. I find it hard to believe that they would build something as extraordinary as the Gates and yet make them so hard to use."
"You could be right, sir. I'd say it's definitely worth more study. But how does all this relate to Starbase 901?" asked Hunter.
"We've determined that two months from now, the Black Gate will open a wormhole to the other side of the Federation, to a system near the Tholian border. If we can get the starbase through, we can move it almost 8000 lightyears in almost zero time!"
"Incredible," said Hunter. He was impressed with the Admiral's daring plan. If it worked, a tremendous amount of effort and resources would be saved, and Starfleet would have an almost brand-new Buckingham class starbase in one of the most incessantly troubled regions of space. There was just one more detail that concerned him.
"What about us, Admiral?" he asked. "We've got a dozen ships through here every week carrying everything from trillium-D to quadrotriticale. We definitely need some sort of orbital depot."
"A newly-refurbished K-class station will be in put in place after the starbase is moved out."
That satisfied Commodore Hunter. "Well, looks like everything is covered. Let's just hope everything goes as smoothly as it's supposed to.
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