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Ikin, freshly settled into command of the B'hilent - a ship of the KDF and the Klingon Empire - winces as the Federation ship launches another three astrometric probes.

Another three.

Oh, the B'hilent has a cloak. He might not be the greatest of the Klingon fleet, but they carry that much. What they do not carry is the newest cloak and every astrometric probe carries an array of sensors he would have greatly liked to have when he had been dodging honor duels and ambushes on his way to this command.

Let the fools mock the Federation for giving up cloaking technology in the Treaty of Algeron and their continued avoidance of it in most cases. They could update their sensors and avoid natural problems, find necessary resources faster and detect a larger range of cloaked ships at a greater distance. The Klingon Empire and the tattered remnants of the Romulans had to do both just to keep up.

Swallowing a sigh, he gestures his Orion helmsmen over to begin plotting a course and timing that puts as many stars and moons between their track and the ridiculous number of probes the Starfleet ship had littered around the system. The Federation just intends to win the war by stacking supply crates up and dropping them on warriors?

He'll show them what a mind and honor can do together.

Welcome to the 25th century. Have a meeting.

The alpha bridge crew shuffled into the briefing room, mugs of soup and Raktigino clutched tightly.

"Staff meeting time. What's on the agenda this week?" asked Jhrot as he dropped into his chair at the head of the table.

"I have the latest set of makework assignments and notifications from Starfteet Command-" began Anthi, his Andorian second.

"-And I have some non-standard requests from the crew plus the intelligence breifing for the Klingon front," finished his chief Engineer, a Saurian who had transfered in after his own impromptu promotion had shook the department up something fierce. Ephren. The family name didn't have a direct equivalent in Federation Standard yet. Either the language or the people would change. He was betting on the language.

"Scuttwork first, then the news from the front. Anthi?"

"Colonists on the move again. The Federation Council feels that a war with the Klingons and a cold war with the Romulans is a poor excuse for stopping the colonization program."

A small chorus of groans sounded.

"Exactly, so double check that the public areas are civilian proofed and we'll be ferrying the first in colonists to the Delta Volanis Cluster infill colony sites.

"On top of the scheduled leaves, medical rotations and what have you, I have an application for attending the latest symposium on ketracel white derivatives, two requests to attempt asteroid mining with ship equipment during off hours and

Run the race as though you mean to win

Every Starfleet officer has, in their own heads at least, a tiered set of horrors. The things they'd least like to face.

Raiders are generally low. The horrors they commit are still horrible and the people they kill still dead, but that is the end of it. Raiders do not take planets.

The Klingons, having gone from cold war to peace to cold and hot wars again, take planets. But the Federation had won that war before and would do it again. Maybe even bring them into the Federation as more than an ally this time. Forge a union rather than just a peace.

The same went for the Romulans, for all that it was not a formal war between the shattered remnants and the Federation but a more subtle struggle of raiding and diplomatic maneuverings. That and blame for a failure to avert a natural disaster, but even Ambassador Spock had to run out of options once in a while.

No it was the more exotic threats. The Borg. The Dominion. The Undine.

Takers. Replacers. Subverters.

Unmaking at a fundamental level.

It was part of why he went into engineering. Part of why he shipped aid and answered distress calls and taught.

If you built enough - fast enough, good enough - they couldn't tear it all down. Not before someone else could build more. Civilization was a relay race after all. Not that he was done running yet, but a few more runners never hurt.

Engineers solve practical problems

Putting up a turret looks easy. A few control taps, a handful of seconds and you have an extra source of weapons fire to help deal with your problems.

The ice devil, as always, is in the details.

The standard tool kit has power sources, but nothing that's good for more than a few stun shots. There isn't enough 'oomf' there, so you bootstrap it up.

The kit projects a single, generations out of date, holographic micro-singularity reactor reverse engineered from captured Romulan designs and a single purpose, and again, holographic industrial replicator. Using power from the reactor, which is burning completely real atmosphere to produce energy, the one shot replicator produces a second, more elaborate, holographic projector and the processors to hold the holographic matrix for the turret.

Then a copy of a turret holographic matrix is transferred over, along with the matrix for the reactor. Turret, sensors, reactor, all are holographic, infinitely configurable within the limits of physics and the knowledge of the designs.

Progress marches on.

Some days Jhrot wishes that it had been worked out for building shelters first instead of weapons.